


Tribulations

by Aetherius



Series: A Dream of Dragons [9]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aftermath of College of Winterhold Questline, Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Attempted Murder, Blades, Body Dysphoria, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, College of Winterhold Questline, Drunken Kissing, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Homophobia, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Murder, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Prisoner of War, Rape Aftermath, Separation Anxiety, Sexual Tension, Snark, Synod, Thalmor, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aetherius/pseuds/Aetherius
Summary: After learning of the disaster that was the Eye of Magnus at the College of Winterhold, the Thalmor Council sent eight Conservators to retrieve the mer responsible: Ambassador Ancano, Muril, and Amuril Malcior. They intend to make an example of these three would-be warmongers, but there's just one small, minor,tinycomplication in the Thalmor's plans. One they're not aware of.Amuril is the Last Dragonborn's husband.Amuril's tale (the tale of the Mage) and continuation fromPortents
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Original Male Character(s), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: A Dream of Dragons [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/496186
Kudos: 9





	1. Into the Heart of Darkness

## Part One: Father's Duty

> _There can be no doubt that the current peace cannot last forever. The Thalmor take the long view, as is proved by the sequence of events leading up to the Great War. All those who value freedom over tyranny can only hope that before it is too late, Hammerfell and the Empire will be reconciled and stand united against the Thalmor threat. Otherwise, any hope to stem the tide of Thalmor rule over all of Tamriel is dimmed._

* * *

TELEPORTATION was not a spell the Earth Bones tolerated these days, not in Skyrim. When two wizards wove the first of the spell’s threads together, the wind, water, and ground resisted. The struggle was profound, but brief, and in the end eleven mer dissipated from the outer courtyard of the Skyrim Thalmor Embassy, and came back into being on a desolate shore of the Sea of Ghosts.

  
Sleet blew down from the Druadachs and the sea, tangling in their hair and robes. Amuril blinked, his heart dropping into his heaving stomach. He didn’t recognize the frozen rock-littered coast, but with the mountains blocking the rising sun this could only be High Rock. It was the only place within reach of a teleportation spell with mountains to the east.

  
“Next anchor,” the Conservator commander called out.

  
The Conservators encircling the three prisoners rotated clockwise, changing positions for the very precise spell, one he had never mastered. He relied instead on intervention scrolls and shrines of lesser deities like Magnus, but one mage could only transport so many people via Mark and Recall, and the spell had limits to its distance. He didn’t remember the exact numbers, but two mages transporting eleven people felt like the Thalmor were hewing closer to that limit than the Mages Guild ever would have.

  
The two Conservators now on the ends of the five-mer-long diamond closed their eyes and their hands began to glow, the maroon-lavender light chaining clockwise through their brethren until it closed the loop.

  
Amuril locked his jaw, trying to stop the tremble in his lip, but it only spread to his shoulders. He had survived Hammerfell, and he had been alone then. He’d lost his magicka for years, he’d feared permanently, but... Amuril’s hands started shaking, his eyes opened and drifted down to the chains binding his wrists. Keeping him from casting. Divines, they were going to do it again.

  
He wasn’t alone now: he had Irowe. She wasn’t physically here - she had run off for Alftand, but -

  
“ _Recall!_ ”

  
The coast melted away into granite monoliths and towers carved into peaks dotting a large valley. A green-tinted smoke accompanied their arrival this time - a sign the spell was easier to cast, but no less foul-smelling. Amuril gagged and stuffed a white sleeve in his face, focusing on identifying the scent the robes carried. Robes he had no memory of putting on. He couldn’t place it, other than ‘clean’, ‘magic’ and ‘enchanted’. When he thought it carried the cold smoke scent of Destruction, he would pick up a hint of Restoration’s cool menthe, or a trace of petrichor that reminded him of his old Alteration Master robes.

  
Amuril focused on breathing, on the sleeve, not the burnt magicka and bile from the other prisoners. He had Irowe this time. She would come for him, or he would find a way to get to her. Thalmor Council and dragons be damned. With Melucar-

  
Amuril’s breath hitched. Divines, they had to find some way to get their son out of the Dominion as well.

  
The prisoner to his right bent double and vomited. Amuril bit his cheeks and pressed his face harder into the sleeve, bunching as much of it as he could against his nose.

  
“Really, Muril...”

  
Amuril glanced to his left, keeping his nose in the sleeve. Ancano was similarly shackled with magicka-silencing manacles, but somehow immaculate in his Thalmor uniform. His cheeks did puff out now and then, as he too fought the effects of the shackle’s enchantments.

  
More gut-wracking noises came from his right and Amuril shut his eyes, focusing on the sleeve. Amuril had been fighting the nausea and light-headedness of losing his magicka since the night prior, when they arrived at the Embassy. While he had a head-start on adapting to it, the teleportation stench and Muril’s weak stomach were _not_ helping.

  
The Conservators finished rearranging themselves in the circle and Amuril inhaled again, for three seconds. He held it. A banner in the valley below struck out rod-straight in the wind, proudly displaying a golden dragon on a green field. Amuril lost control and exhaled as his eyes widened. Dragonstar?

  
The gust that forced the banner flat below burst up the cliff face, exploding against the eleven mer and billowing their hair and robes as it pleased. Amuril sputtered and coughed. Dragonstar was in Hammerfell. They were cutting through _Hammerfell_ to reach Summerset? Were they _mad_ -?

  
“ _Recall!_ ”

  
The valley blurred and stretched apart like taffy before he could remember to close his eyes, and he and the others snapped away. The gust traveled with them, stirring up sand and grit from their feet and tossing it above their heads. A native wind took control, mingling the sand with saltwater and damp now plastered to their skin like a sopped towel.

  
Amuril’s stomach heaved and he wrapped his arms around his middle. Panic and heartache welled up past the bile, one riling what the other dampened, but his stomach wouldn’t settle. He knew these cliffs, the sandstone peninsula colored blue underneath the starlight. He knew the scent of the warm Abecean Sea laced with creosote and fine-ground desert sand.

  
This was Krertan. He hadn’t been back here since-

  
“ _Next anchor!_ ”

  
The air began to thrum as the spell coursed through the Conservators’ hands. Amuril didn’t dare look behind him, too afraid of recognizing the landscape further. Ancano’s knees gave out and he collapsed into the arms of the Conservator beside him, throwing off their rhythm. Amuril’s stomach buckled again and he held a hand to his mouth. Muril gagged-

  
A flash of light to his left distracted him. A dagger. Moving quickly. Covered in blood.

  
The Conservator Ancano had fallen into - the commander - reached for his throat as blood spurt out from the thin gap between collar and helmet-

  
Ancano twisted the dagger and his wrists, still shackled, the dagger’s fuller scrapping against the edges of the nearest Conservator’s eye slit with a scream worthy of Coldharbour. The commander grabbed Ancano’s shoulder, his gold cloak slick with blood, shaking Ancano and the dagger free of the Conservator’s helmet. Blood sprayed out of the helmet, streaming down the mer’s cloak as the Conservator dropped to his knees.

  
It happened so quickly Amuril hadn’t even had time to yell. The other Conservators hadn’t had time to _move_.

  
The teleportation spell crackled. The ground shuddered as a boom scattered sand away from their feet. A dangerous warp wove into the thrum in the air.

  
The Conservators were moving now, reaching for Ancano even as the mer twirled the dagger around and slid his feet through the sand as smoothly as if he was on ice. He dug the bloodied knife into his shackles and twisted. The chains snapped like tin.

  
The teleporter nearest Amuril began to scream as the spell bloomed wild. Smoke erupted from the air around them, red and purple with flashing of lightning as the teleporter struggled to regain control. The spell snaked forward, writhing, enveloping him-

Thick arms wrapped around Amuril and tugged him back against a cuirass, away from the spell. A gurgled scream and a thunderclap punctuated the air. The undeniable stench of acrid magicka and putrid flesh - a spell gone horribly wrong - wafted in behind them. The other teleporter.

  
Amuril’s breath came too quickly to actually breathe, only adding to his panic as he clawed at the arms holding him. The smoke around the surviving teleporter was too noxious, too dark, for this spell to transport anyone alive and in one piece to their next destination. He had to stay alive- Irowe would go mad if something happened to him- The teleporting mer was straining, red lightning arcing across their chest between their palms-

  
The Conservator next to them took the teleporter’s hand and latched onto the mer holding Amuril. Muril was putting up more of a fight, but the Conservator holding him pressed him against their chest, crossing their arms to complete the circle even while Muril screamed in protest. Amuril shut his eyes, the red lightning dancing just behind his lids, praying in his mind with the fear spoken words wouldn’t reach the Divines soon enough.

  
“ _Valril-!_ ”

  
The air inside the circle ruptured and threw them across the ground. The mer holding him by some miracle maintained his grip, tightening it even as they slid. Something slammed into the Conservator’s back. Amuril’s head cracked against the flat cuirass. Then the mer crumpled onto him. Amuril yelled and reached for his head - or tried to. The Conservator was a dead weight pressing him into the ground and Amuril begged the Aubris that the mer wasn’t _actually_ dead.

  
The thought came to him, as his heart pounded in his throat, that he could feel all his fingers and toes, and didn’t appear to be missing any limbs or sporting new ones. So the teleportation spell had worked at least-

  
The Conservator shifted. Amuril froze.

  
“Alaerensa!”

  
Amuril coughed, wincing as his breath puffed dust into his eyes. The other Conservator ran over, boots clanging on stone- A gauntlet clamped down on the nape of his neck and Amuril kept still. Wood knocked against an upraised stone tile as a staff was whipped around, the charge of a shock spell sounded above him. He could feel his hair standing on end and the stench of burning air as the staff’s two prongs were pressed to the back of his head.

  
The gauntlet was removed as the first Conservator stood up. The staff stayed. “Cel, where’s the other one?” Alaerensa gasped.

  
“Lillandis has him paralyzed.”

  
“Valril?”

“Dead.”

  
Amuril bit his lip and shifted so the manacles weren’t digging into his ribs, careful to move slowly. As his shoulders straightened, he was able to see more of where they’d landed. Tall white spires, and it looked like they were on a bridge over a canal. Unnaturally manicured autumnal red maples in the middle of winter, adorned with green hedges. Amuril felt the marble stone underneath sapping all the heat from his body.

  
Summerset. They were in Summerset.

  
His gaze drifted down to the walkway- Amuril jerked up from the ground despite the staff against his head. A blackened mass in the middle of the stones under the lamppost’s light, a macabre corruption of the eloquent avenue they landed on.

  
“Stop him-”

  
A boot dug into his shoulder blades and pressed him back down. “Hold it, scum.”

  
He could still see the immolated, half-melted body piled amidst exploded and blackened tiles. The only thing the spell left recognizable as a living being was the head, face contorted into a silenced scream. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t cast.

  
Irowe. Where was Irowe?

  
Shadows broke the malondo light of the streetlamps beyond the bridge, moving quickly. Guards. Amuril blinked. Now that he listened, he could hear dogs barking in nearby houses and a flock of birds starting to roost again in the trees around them.

  
“Conservator? -Xarxes preserve us! What happened?”

  
The guard palmed his mouth and just stared, taking a step back at what was left of the teleporter; his partner made the sign of Arkay. “Tell- what do you need?” He said when he’d regained his senses.

  
“There was an incident transporting these prisoners.” Alaerensa stated. She shook her head. “We will continue to Alinor. Those are our orders. If you could... see to Valril’s body until the Batltlereeve can send-”

  
“Yes, of course.” The guard nodded. “Norensil, go- fetch a priest.”

  
The second guard snapped a fist to his chest then took off running. The remaining guard walked to the nearest streetlamp and pulled down a banner, draping it over the charred body as best it would fit. The Conservators stood quietly, observing a moment of silence with the guard. Someone whimpered - Muril - and Amuril craned his neck to look behind him. The staff’s prongs dug into his neck and Amuril winced, letting it push him back down.

  
“Come on: home.” Alaerensa sighed, stretching her fingers. “Lillandis, bring him over here.”

  
At her beckoning, the third Conservator grabbed Muril’s ankle and dragged him next to Amuril. Muril was crying, muttering to himself in tones that couldn’t be understood through the tears and hiccups. Lillandis planted his foot on Muril’s stomach and took the other Conservators’ hands. A boot dug into Amuril’s back and the air started to thrum again.

  
“Recall.”

  
The maroon-lavender glow of the spell mingled with the pink-tinted clouds of the coming dawn, then they were whisked away. The marble avenue was narrow, claustrophobic, and pristine, the cold gold light of metal lampposts giving a rose hue to the walls surrounding them. Amuril coughed and peered around, his ears still ringing from the spell. All he could see above was walls, but to his left was a clearing, a bridge, and the night sky beyond. A chill crept up Amuril’s arms, and not from the avenue. The Thalmor Council Citadel rose out of the mountain across the bridge.

  
The pronged staff pushed against his head again, digging in when he didn’t immediately yield. Amuril glanced out at the bridge, the roar of the Sancrelleis falls drowning out the fading ring in his ears. The Conservators wanted him on the ground, they didn’t sound like they were going to let him up anytime soon. Were they waiting for someone? And where would that person come from? The bridge, or the avenue?

  
Amuril winced and laid his head down, facing the avenue. It was sometime before dawn and there was nothing across the bridge but the Citadel, the old royal palace. Anyone coming would - should - be from the avenue. Boots echoed against the towering walls. Amuril frowned: he didn’t see anyone coming and the avenue was well lit. But there hadn’t been anyone on the bridge-

  
“Commander Menirion? Where is he? Where is the rest of your squad?”

  
The voice came from directly in front of him. Amuril slumped against the ground: he hadn’t thought that was an option. He craned his neck to look ahead, where the woman’s voice came from. A low pulse from the staff rippled through his head down his hands and feet, the manacles holding the charge seconds after the staff had stopped. Amuril gasped, wincing - he’d hit his forehead when the staff shocked him. The prongs pressed back into the bruise they’d left in his scalp.

  
“Quiet, scum.”

  
Amuril bit his lip and breathed through his nose. He heard laughter in his mind, cutting words in Altmeris, and he dug his fingers into his palms. This wasn’t Hammerfell. Somewhere in front of him the newcomers stopped. One of the Conservators snapped a salute to their helmet.

  
“Battlereeve Aiwynn. Alaerensa. The third prisoner escaped at the second Mark from here. Valril perished bringing us and the prisoners to Firsthold. The Commander and the others will need reinforcements.”

  
“Which one? Which one escaped?”

  
“Malcior.”

  
Amuril blinked.

  
“Little bastard-” The Battlereeve spat. “Lyrelis.”

  
Amuril shifted on the ground, lifting his head. “I’m-”

  
White light blinded him and for a few moments, he couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t speak. Then the light stopped and everything ached. The manacles were burning and he tried to pull them apart, tucking them into his robes and away from each other so they’d stop arcing into his arms.

  
“I said _quiet_.”

  
The staff pinned his head to the avenue tiles but the most pain came from the hollow in his left wrist. Amuril gasped and tried to slip a finger from his other hand underneath there, against the scar tissue stemming up his forearm from his wrist. They’d put manacles on him then, to hold his hand still, so he couldn’t pull his arm away-

  
“Take Silvarime and a guard patrol to Hammerfell. Get the Mark from Valril’s body in Firsthold. _Find_ Master Malcior. He’s not getting out of this that easily.” Amuril slumped onto the ground, rubbing the center of his scar with the pad of his finger. “Be careful. He’s a slippery one. He’s escaped us before.”

  
“He won’t get far in Hammerfell.” Lyrelis growled before snapping a salute and running off.

  
Amuril huffed, flinching immediately afterwards. For all Summerset’s efforts, the avenue wasn’t so pristine as to be free of dust. And he doubted the Conservators would let him rub the dirt out of his eyes given their stated opinion of him.

  
“Get them up.”

  
Gauntlets clamped around his shoulders and Amuril’s knees barely touched the ground before he was hauled to his feet. The other two Conservators grabbed Muril, though he was moaning and his knees kept buckling. Amuril held his hands out to steady himself. He blinked, trying to blink the dirt away, but moving his eyelids did nothing and it was a growing irritation.

  
Amuril brought his hands to his face and rubbed quickly with his fingers, assuming the mer would throw him to the ground again the second they saw him move. The metal fingers on his shoulders squeezed, but he’d expected that and continued rubbing until he thought he’d gotten the dirt out. Amuril brushed his eyes with the back of his knuckles before bringing his hands down again, swallowing. He expected to be punished for- well moving without permission. He wasn’t sure exactly what offended these people so much.

  
The Battlereeve stared at him. Then looked at Muril and the two Conservators struggling to keep him on his feet.

  
“Where is Ancano?”

  
The three Conservators looked at each other, then at Amuril. Then at each other again. Muril gurgled something.

  
“ _Ancano_ escaped,” Amuril said. “ _I’m_ Master Malcior.”

  
The Battlereeve’s eyes narrowed. “And you said nothing?”

  
“I _tried to_ but-” The gauntlets dug into his skin through the robe and he gasped- “you kept _shocking me_! Will you stop that!?” Amuril yelled at the mer behind him.

  
The fingers stopped digging but still pressed against him, weighing him down. He was going to have bruises all over from this Celaryon. The Battlereeve was still staring at him, staring him down. Amuril huffed, trying to ignore the pain. How could they mistake him for Ancano? They looked nothing alike - Ancano was wearing his Thalmor uniform and Amuril was- well he wasn’t sure what he was wearing but the robes were completely white. Though Muril looked to be in nightclothes so perhaps they thought Amuril was too.

  
Amuril scowled in disgust. “And for the record: I don’t _murder people_.”

  
“No, you just get them killed by your stupidity.” Battlereeve Aiwynn replied. “Unless you’re going to tell me all the missing Thalmor in Skyrim are actually alive and having tea with the Empire?”

  
Amuril kept his eyes locked with her but his heart fell. The Thalmor agents at the College, Ancano had ordered them left behind, but they’d only needed to be abandoned because Amuril paralyzed them. But they were going to kill Colette, one of the mages. None of them knew the Stormcloaks were so close to the main courtyard. Those mer were there to steal the Eye for Ancano, for the Thalmor, to do Divines only knew what with it but nothing _good_.

  
_Did they deserve to die for that? Like that? You know what the Stormcloaks do to Thalmor._

  
Amuril’s gaze faltered. The Battlereeve scoffed.

  
“I didn’t think so.”

  
Amuril tried to shrug his shoulder, to get a little reprieve from Celaryon but the mer stayed clamped down on him. Muril’s feet shuffled on the tile, mostly supporting his own weight.

  
The Battlereeve looked to Alaerensa. “Get cleaned up, I’ll want a report when I’ve seen to these two.”

  
“Yes Battlereeve.”

  
Alaerensa and Lillandis left Muril’s side - the mer stumbled without their support but caught himself. Alaerensa smacked Celaryon’s side as she walked past. Celaryon grumbled under his breath but took his hands off Amuril. Amuril wilted away from him, staying hunched over until the mer was a pace away and he could finally roll his shoulders. The Battlereeve stepped forward, slowly, purposefully.

  
“You try anything... I’ll say you slipped.”

  
She blinked, breaking eye contact to look to her right, where the bridge high over the Sancrelleis stood. Amuril followed her gaze and swallowed. There was a plaza of some sort down below, three levels down. The canal guiding the river to the bay was another three levels below that.

  
“I don’t think the High Kinlord would like that.” Amuril said quietly.

  
“Oh, believe me, I think he’d be grateful.” She muttered, but said no more. Instead she flicked her wrist and the guards that accompanied her stepped forward, one taking Amuril’s arm and the other taking Muril’s.

  
The Battlereeve walked toward the falls, moving closer and closer to the cliffside until the rocks curved over her. A door with two guards was carved out of the rock, the torches on either side tucked into nooks to keep them out of the wind and waterfall’s spray. The door opened and Amuril was pushed inside, Muril dragged behind.

  
He had been in Hammerfell prisons, some of which were also built in caves like this one. But where those prisons in Hammerfell were for common common criminals Amuril sensed this prison was for the Dominion’s upper echelons, for the unforgivable sin of impropriety. For one the walls while sparse were just as ornately carved and immaculate as any avenue or house in the city proper, and there were no garish display of bars and cramped cells to hold prisoners in. Instead there were doors. Spaced widely apart, so the cells inside them were spacious and - judging from the plush carpet in the corridor and the same cheerless lamps as the rest of the city - modestly decorated.

  
A less opulent home away from home for the elites the rest of society had turned on. It rankled him, to be here. Was it because Irowe’s ‘father’ - legally though not in actuality - was the High Kinlord of Alinor? The Conservators and Battlereeve had spoken of Amuril as ‘Master Malcior’ and not the Kinlord title he was technically due. He suspected it had been officially rescinded by High Kinlord Vicarian, though whether that happened years ago or whenever he’d been told about Winterhold Amuril couldn’t say. He couldn’t say that he _cared_ either.

  
The Battlereeve turned, heading deeper into the mountain. Muril tripped on the carpet and the guard caught him before he fell. Amuril glanced back before shying away to face forward again. Special treatment because of Irowe's societal status made sense, but Muril was here too. He didn’t know the mer, just that he answered to Ancano and Ancano had left him behind, but he didn’t _act_ like someone important enough to be held here. So perhaps this had nothing to do with the High Kinlord...

  
Amuril’s stomach churned. The Thalmor Council had sent eight Conservators to Skyrim when they heard about the Eye, and they had been brought here to stand trial. Perhaps it wasn’t that they respected him and Muril enough to feel they were owed a higher-class prison, but because they wanted the closer proximity of being housed across the bridge from the Citadel. The tighter security was another factor, certainly. Though elite security hadn’t stopped Ancano from stabbing the commander’s eyes with his own dagger-

  
His stomach lurched and Amuril shot a hand to his mouth. Best not to think of it, best not to think of it... Eight Conservators sent, only three returned. Everyone acted like they were the best warriors the Dominion had but they were _bodyguards_ first and foremost, not assassins. Bodyguards for the Thalmor Council, yes, but all that meant was a more ostentatious door to stand in front of.

  
The Battlereeve stopped and a cell door slid into the wall. She jerked her head and the guard hauled Amuril over, walking him inside the door. As he suspected the room was spacious for a jail cell but it was bare, dimly lit from something in the ceiling. Amuril turned and stepped further inside, but the door slammed shut in his face, cutting off the light from the corridor. No one followed him in, and he couldn’t hear anything from the corridor. He couldn’t hear anything at all.

  
Amuril exhaled and blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light, before looking around the room again. The light came from a shrouded malondo stone, hanging free from the ceiling. It raised the room’s luminosity from pitch black to late twilight at best, but it was enough to see his hands by. There was a bed in the far corner, little more than a raised mattress pad on the floor. Inspecting it he found the edges were curved, rounded off; he looked up, noticing the corners of the room were treated the same.

  
A spigot jutted out of the wall right of the door, over a small recessed area of tile with what looked like tiny grates in the floor. Amuril raised an eyebrow: there was nothing along the wall, not even furniture, between the ‘shower’ and the door. He looked again, frowning. There were no screens, curtains, doors or walls _anywhere_ in the room, nothing that could block line of sight from the door.

  
His skin crawled, hearing jeers inside his head, and his scar itched. Amuril rubbed his thumb against the starburst under the manacle and inspected the shower, his brow raising again. No soap? He frowned and looked around, but the only other object was the bed that was barely raised off the ground. Amuril put his hands on his hips, but the manacles wouldn’t let him reach so he settled for just the one on his right. They expected him to go on trial before the most respected persons in the Dominion but they expected him to bathe with _just_ _water_ -?

  
The knuckle on his right hand tapped something metal. Amuril froze, his mouth falling open-

  
Amuril twisted the belt around his waist and dug into the satchel at his side, little more than a large pocket hidden in his robes. He pulled out the object and let it drop onto the mattress, lifting his hands to run them over his mouth and through his hair.

  
The draugr death mask from Labyrinthian. The magicka-regenerating enchanted draugr death mask from Labyrinthian-

  
Amuril ran over to the door, running his hands over it. No locks, no latches, no knobs, nothing he could see that would open it from this side. He turned around, looking up at the ceiling. There were no windows and the malondo stone was a good six feet out of reach for an Altmer of normal height, which he was not. It didn’t look like there was any other method of surveillance here, and the only entryway was the door.

  
Amuril bit his lip. Anything on the walls or the ceiling were too high up for him to reach. There were no gaps between the bed’s stone platform and the wall. He walked over to the spigot, but even that was too far for him to reach. He knelt down and ran his hands over the small holes of the grate: it was too small for his fingers much less the mask. Amuril tapped his palms against his thighs, the chain clinking in his lap, fingers curling absently into fists with nervous energy.

  
The cell, already deafening in its silence, only amplified his heartbeat. Nowhere to hide it, and Divines only knew what they would do if they found it.

  
Amuril bowed his head and prayed, to Tava, to Arkay, to Mara, to all the Divines together for some guidance on what to do. No one had noticed it in the satchel yet, not the Thalmor at the Embassy, not the Conservators, not the prison guards. All he could do at present was hope they would continue to miss it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'm surprised anyone clicked to read this after all those tags, yikes XD
> 
> So I looked on my little story planner sheet and realized 'yikes I'm getting to the point where I NEED to post Amuril's chapters'. I've got _[Omens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178855)_ on hold (temporarily) to work on getting _Tribulations_ current.
> 
> So yay! Amuril's no longer under arrest like he has been for 2 and a half _years_ :D  
> Now he's in prison D:


	2. Sundered, Keening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warnings:**
> 
>   * Non-Consensual Body Modification/Body horror I guess?
>   * Non-Consensual Drug Use
> 


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In before my mom calls FanFic CPS on me for Amuril. You said not to touch a hair on Fallon or Breldan's heads (or their arms), you said nothing about Amuril :p
> 
> Also I am going to _try_ (operative word: try) to keep to updating one of the three sequels in the series at least every other week on Sundays. No I have not forgotten about _Broken Dreams_ it's just for coherence's sake, it condenses like the first 17 chapters of _Omens_ /first 8 of _Tribulations_ into 2 chapters and... I'd rather not spoil plot twists, lmao.
> 
> However, like a complete dundercracker, I forgot I signed up for a summer class so... that and work and RL is eating up a lot of my time, but I've got time to write out chapters. If I manage it properly, *grumblegrumble*.

> _"Even the best mage has a finite reserve of magicka; none born yet have been graced with Magnus' infinite reserves of power."_
> 
> _\-- Aranmil, Valenwood's most prestigious spellcaster_

* * *

MALONDO LIGHT shone bleak around him, doing little to dispel the cell’s gloom. Amuril sat on the bed, legs crossed with his back against the wall, staring at the door. The mask was of no use to him, not with the manacles on - he had gotten bored and nervous enough to risk putting it on. But the issue was not that that he didn’t have the magicka (he did) it was that the manacles prevented him from _using it_. Amuril sighed again, blinking to refresh his eyes, still watching the door.

  
The mask wasn’t the only thing the Thalmor hadn’t noticed.

  
Amuril continued staring ahead and to the left (toward the door) as his heartbeat drowned out the sound of his hand slipping into the sash flat against his waist. He coughed, slowly pulling his watch out from the slim pocket it was nestled in, holding it up to his face. Thirty-seven minutes till ten o’clock, though whether it was ten in the morning or ten in the evening he couldn’t tell.

  
He wasn’t sure how they had missed it, although the watch _was_ small, unnoticeable underneath the thick sash and belt. He couldn’t imagine they would let him keep it if they knew. The cell was windowless, with no way to know whether it was night or day, or how long he had been in here, or what sort of schedule they planned to keep him to. The watch helped keep a rough tally of the passage of time, but he had slept since they threw him in here, and aside from watching the door there was nothing to do but worry and sleep. He was sure it had been at least one day, perhaps two. Maybe three.

  
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, exactly: Irowe was the former inquisitor, not him. His last night in Skyrim had been in the Thalmor Embassy’s dungeon, but he was only held there, not punished. He had some inkling of what the Thalmor dungeons were like for longer-term prisoners; he expected to be tortured, interrogated. Not... left alone. Forgotten. The door hadn’t opened since his arrive, and the shower was dry. His heart beat faster, the panic growing in his empty stomach. No food, no water, not even to bathe with. His throat, dry as it was, started to close up. Perhaps they had forgotten him here, which cell they’d put him in. Perhaps they didn’t care-

  
_No_. Amuril forced himself to calm down, to breathe and focus only on breathing. They brought him here to stand trial. He frowned, resting his head against the wall. Trying to count the days he had spent going by events at the College was no use - he had no measure of how long he and Fallon spent in Labyrinthian, or in Mzulft before that, and everyone in Winterhold had more important things to think on than what _day_ it was. Amuril pushed the panic back down, thinking on the guard rotations at the Embassy, any familiar faces...

  
_Karantus_. Amuril inhaled, remembering the mer’s crooked nose among the crowd, one of the guards as he hadn’t been in bedclothes. He was one of the justiciars in Lithelnor’s patrol, and Lithelnor’s rotation was the week after his and Irowe’s. If they were still at the Embassy it would have been their rest week, merely patrolling the Embassy or doing menial tasks for Elenwen: they would have been due at whatever hold they were assigned to that month by Morndas.

  
Amuril broke contact with the door to stare at the ceiling. So it had been the weekend, that he was brought back under paralysis to the Embassy? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t think it could have been Turdas, or Fredas... but it had been at least a day here in the cell. Amuril sighed, slipping the watch back into its pocket and laying the sash carefully flat over it. Important as a potential second war with the Empire might be, apparently the Thalmor Council didn’t want to meet on Sundas-

  
The door slammed open.

  
Amuril stumbled to his feet on the bed, pressing back against the wall until his knees gave out and he collapsed on the mattress. He crawled back until he touched the wall, holding his arms to his chest to stop his heart from leaping out of it. Amuril panted, squinting up at the door and the approaching figure, the sound of boots was so loud and the lamp in the hallway so bright it made his eyes water shut.

  
Amuril swore under his breath and wiped his face, trying to keep his eyes open but they kept beading closed. The boots stopped. Gauntleted fingers clamped around his forearm and tugged him from the bed. The memory of dirty muttering echoed in his ears. Amuril pawed at his eyes, keeping them shut but trying to force them to adjust to the brightness faster. At least he had been able to _see_ in Hammerfell.

  
Whoever had come for him walked out into the hall and turned left, dragging him by his arm. Amuril’s breathing was light, a stone skimming over water, the lamplight growing brighter beyond his eyelids before fading into the dance of tiny magicka flecks they left behind. He opened his eyes, a little, the tears still pooling and dripping down his face. While blurred, he could see the dark blue of a Conservator’s cloak. Amuril swallowed. So it was Morndas then.

  
The Conservator turned right again. There were no doors in this corridor, and fewer lamps. Amuril blinked, looking ahead. No: there was one door, at the end of the corridor. Amuril glanced around. It didn’t look like the door to the city they had brought him in from.

  
The door was pushed open and Amuril led inside. It was a decently sized room, with benches along the walls and tools resting on pins above them. Amuril’s breath stopped, and he faintly wondered if Irowe would know what those tools were for. But so- were they going to torture him for information? _Why_? Yes, he had to hide some information from them - Irowe is Dragonborn, the Blades, the Blades temple - but they had no reason to suspect that. ... Did they?

  
The Conservator shoved him into the lone chair in the room and Amuril immediately tucked his arms to his chest once the Conservator let go of him. A bar swung out and trapped his feet against the flat edge of the chair. His heart stopped and he was in the smithy of Taneth’s Thalmor headquarters again. Amuril panicked, forcing his knees apart and trying to twist his feet sideways to pull them out. The bar caught on his ankle. Amuril gasped and put his right hand on the arm of the chair and _pulled_. He had to rip his foot out even if it was his own bones keeping him there-

  
A bar locked down across his right arm. Amuril forgot about his foot and jerked his arm, keeping his left tucked under his chin. The bar was locked below the manacle, a shallow groove in the chair’s arm preventing him from escaping it sideways. Amuril pressed his feet against the ground and jerked his arm back again, the metal clanging together repeatedly.

  
The Conservator reached for his left hand. Amuril tucked his chin, trying to keep his arm away, but fingers slipped under his armpit- Amuril dropped his hand to his waist and grabbed a fistful of robe from his right hip. He _could not_ let them take his left hand. Any hope of freeing his right or his feet was gone, forgotten. In its place the memory, the fear if his left hand were locked into the chair’s other arm.

  
His magicka. They were going to take it again. How could he escape- how could he find Irowe if they took his magicka away? Removing the pin before had nearly killed him. Staring up at the stars through the riad’s courtyard roof in a pool of his own blood while Orrelion and his friend tried to stem the bleeding-

  
A hand clamped around his throat. “ _Stop it_.”

  
Amuril pressed back against the chair, blinking back tears. His arm was beginning to cramp but he didn’t let go of his robes. The Conservator sighed and hung his head, letting his hands rest on the chair’s arms.

  
“Stop struggling... and I’ll give you a potion for the pain. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”

  
Amuril swallowed, bunching more of the robe between his fingers and slowly pulling on his trapped hand. They hadn’t given him anything for the pain the last time. Orrelion had to carry him to an alchemist afterwards, he was too overwhelmed with pain to walk. No one here would do that for him. As little as Orrelion had cared, no one here cared that much.

  
Irowe wasn’t coming. Amuril tugged on his trapped hand, the tears welling in his throat. He’d given Fallon his ring so she could find him - heal _him_ \- but she had no way of knowing where Amuril was. She had no way of knowing he was being held in caves above or below the Sancrelleis and they were going to take his magicka away.

  
The sob slipped out of his throat and he shut his eyes, hanging his head. He couldn’t stop this from happening... and he would need that potion. Amuril slid his hand away, trembling. He inhaled when the mer took his arm and set it down in the groove of the chair, locking the bar behind the manacle.

  
The clink of metal was what broke the dam. His mind rebelled, refused. He was a Thalmor wizard even if that was only lip service. His wife was the High Kinlord’s daughter. He was a Dominion citizen. They wouldn’t _do this_ to him. If they were just planning to kill him when they found him guilty there was no reason to _do this_.

  
A hand ran through his hair, pushing it out of his face and behind his ears, and Amuril flinched back. When he blinked his eyes open there was a potion bottle in front of him. Resigned, he let the Conservator pour it into his mouth and swallowed. The Conservator looked over his shoulder before secreting the empty bottle in his belt. Amuril bit his lip to stop it from quivering.

  
“Master Serlamo.”

  
“Yes, yes, I’m ready if you are.”

  
Amuril shook his head, his lip turning white. He wasn’t ready. He tugged on the restraints again but only his manacles budged. The master in question entered the room, a black leather apron over waxed robes that covered everything but his face. He wiped his palms and dropped the rag on one of the workbenches, opening a drawer. The drawer shut and something dropped onto the counter. _Tink tink tinktink_ -

  
Amuril threw his arms back, straining and trying to cup his palms and fingers together, to slip out of the manacles. No. The back of the chair pressed against his elbows, he tried moving his arms sideways but he couldn’t reach. _No_.

  
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Amuril, _stop it_.”

  
He pulled against the manacles. His hands wouldn’t fit. Amuril muttered curses under his breath and pulled harder, twisting his hands to try and wrench them free. Nothing changed, no matter how many times he slammed the manacles against the bar restraints. His arms trembled, the futility of the circumstances winning out against the panic. Neither of the other mer moved. He hung his head, breathing unsteady. The potion hadn’t set in yet. Amuril clenched his eyes shut. His right hand was bleeding.

  
“If you’re finished?” Serlamo asked drily.

  
Amuril lifted his face slowly to glare at the mer. The Conservator at least seemed to understand the only reason either of them was still breathing were the manacles keeping him silenced. Serlamo scoffed and grabbed Amuril’s right hand, despite his clenched fist, pulling it out to look at the cut. The blood started to drip upwards through the air, toward Serlamo’s hand. They’d used bloodstones in Taneth as well. The mer scowled in disgust, walking away. The droplets fell to the ground.

  
Serlamo came back with a rag and a strip of leather, tying both to Amuril’s wrist. A loop of metal wrapped around Amuril’s left hand and his arm went limp. Serlamo unlocked the manacle. Amuril strained, trying to move his arm: it wouldn’t budge. In the lamp light he could see there was a faint green sheen to the malondo bracelet.

  
He couldn’t move his arm, his feet, his hand. Amuril’s heart caught in his throat as the wrist wraps were casually unwound and tossed aside. He couldn’t stop Serlamo from turning his wrist over-

  
“What?”

  
Amuril’s heart stopped.

  
“What is this?” Serlamo asked, his fingers tracing the lines of the scar.

  
“What is what?” The Conservator asked stiffly.

  
Serlamo ignored him. His thumb slid down Amuril’s arm to the natural divot of his wrist, pressing down, probing for metal that wasn’t there. A seasick moan escaped Amuril, and Serlamo locked eyes with him.

  
“You’ve had one of these before.”

  
His tongue felt heavy. Swollen. The potion? Or nerves? Amuril looked away to the corner of the floor, the only part of the room not showcasing instruments of pain.

  
“How did you get it out?”

  
“He’s never had a pin before. There’s no record of it.” The Conservator said. Dismissive.

  
Serlamo grabbed his sleeve, shoving it up to Amuril’s elbow, baring the thin spiderweb of scars creeping up from his wrist. Vestiges of long-term magicka drain. “Where did this come from? Hmm? Did you think no one would notice? Look at me.” He yelled, snapping his fingers in Amuril’s face.

  
Amuril, pointedly, held his gaze at the floor. A hand grabbed his jaw and he locked his neck - or tried to. The paralysis still rendered him unable to move, but able to be moved. The Conservator stood stock still, watching, not interfering. Serlamo’s eyes went from his face to the scar, then back to him.

  
“How did you get it out?”

  
Amuril set his jaw. “Intercourse your grandmother.”

  
Shock then rage flashed over the mer’s face. He didn’t see the hand that hit him, only felt the sting after he slumped sideways in the chair.

  
“Enough!” The Conservator snapped, gripping Serlamo’s arm. “Your orders are to install the pin, whether he had one before or not doesn’t matter.”

  
Serlamo pulled himself free, taking a step back and raising his voice. “It _does_ matter. Because these don’t turn off! I’ve seen mer cut off their hands or try digging them out, or had friends do it for them. This isn’t anything like that.” He grabbed Amuril’s arm, running a palm up from his wrist to his elbow. “This is _clean_. How did you do it?”

  
Amuril blinked, keeping his gaze on his wrist. Orrelion brought a friend (who owed a bar tab debt to a friend of a friend) to heal him, hold him down while they pried it out. Vividly he recalled the bright sun on the sands, the terrified rage in Orrelion’s face when he heard Amuril had told someone about his ‘friends’ and the fire in Taneth. Being shaken and screamed at to get it into his head what would happen to those friends - to Orrelion, to _Amuril_ \- if the Thalmor knew about them.

  
“Intercourse your grandfather.”

  
He expected the fist that connected with his face. It didn’t make it hurt any less. The Conservator wrapped an arm around Serlamo’s chest and this time, did not let go.

  
“Enough! If you cannot restrain yourself, then fetch a mer who can. We have a schedule to keep.”

  
Serlamo struggled, fists clenched, but the Conservator held fast. Dark words were muttered in Altmeris but Serlamo stood still. He sighed and turned away, back to the workbench. The Conservator let him go. Amuril peered up at the mer’s back from his slumped position. The drawer opened. Was he putting the pins back, giving up?

  
“I’m putting two in.”

  
Amuril’s breath stopped.

  
“What?” The Conservator sounded so far away, imagined. _Two_? This wasn’t happening. “You only need one.”

  
“Yeah, and those don’t come out.” He gestured with a hammer toward Amuril’s arm.

  
Serlamo returned, shoving Amuril back upright, then held the bloodstone over Amuril’s wrist. Amuril swallowed, watching the veins in his wrist surface, deep blue on the unmarred skin and faded where the webbed scars crossed. Serlamo placed the length of a pin between the two prominent lines of blue, the tip of metal scraping his skin. Amuril’s heart was skipping and if he looked - which he tried not to - he could see his pulse-

  
The hammer came down. Amuril screamed.

* * *

  
He was still crying when Serlamo released him, letting him crumple to the ground, holding his arms to his chest. There was blood on his robes, smeared on his arms where hemoloam was caked onto the broken skin. He could feel blood on his face, could smell it. He wasn’t sure which arm, which wound, it was from. The potion hadn’t hit him yet, if it ever would. They hadn’t given him anything for the pain in Taneth but at least he had been able to _move_. There was something traumatizing about being stripped of movement, forced to sit limply as he was manhandled and _violated_.

  
Serlamo prodded Amuril’s shoulder with his boot. “Not so tough now, are you?” Amuril curled tighter on the floor. “Mages never are...”

  
“Come on. Up.”

  
The Conservator knelt beside him and tucked his hands under Amuril’s arms, hoisting him up. Amuril stumbled back, his legs trembling as he tried to keep his balance. In Taneth he’d been handed back to Orrelion, carried to that cursed alchemist for anything to numb the pain. At the time he’d resented - been insulted by - Orrelion’s fussing over him for hours - days - after, but the thought of being tended to seemed so comforting now.

  
The manacles clicked around his wrists again. Now no one cared if he was comfortable, only that he was fit to stand trial before the Thalmor Council. On cue, the Conservator stepped back from him, withholding support and letting Amuril find his feet on his own. The room was rocking, like a ship at sea, and in a daze Amuril tried to match its sway. He nearly fell when the Conservator hooked his elbow and pulled him from the room.

  
The lamps blurred into each other, an endless loop of the same scenery. All he could feel was the throbbing heartbeat in his wrists, the Conservator’s grip, the weight of his own body falling on his feet as he put one foot in front of the other. Amuril tried to keep the horizon steady, the door at the end of the corridor as they walked toward it. He wanted to sleep, to think this was just a horrible nightmare, a reimagining of Taneth laced with fears about Irowe being discovered.

  
The door opened and he was brought out into blinding sunlight, the cathedral spires of Alinor shining like a second Magnus. The Conservator mercifully waited for his eyes to adjust before leading him ahead along the narrow path in the cliffs. Amuril leaned to his right, peering down over the edge, morbidly curious. The Conservator tightened his grip and pulled Amuril against the mural-covered rock wall.

  
“Don’t.”

  
Amuril blinked up at him, for a moment fixated on the bright blue eyes behind the shadow of the glass helmet. The Conservator looked away, switching to hold Amuril’s right elbow as they walked up to the bridge. The guards stiffened at their approached. There was a thin crowd of mer in the avenue, sightseeing on the bridge. A woman caught sight of him and cried out in shock, averting her eyes. Most of her companions looked over before quickly looking anywhere else. Some of them stared. Amuril’s breath hitched and he looked down. His fingers curled toward his palms at the attention but the bolt of pain from doing so made him stop, spread his fingers flat.

  
He wasn’t _covered_ in blood, but it was distinctive on his white robes. His sleeves were bloody, and the robes near his knees. A crosswind cut across the bridge, buffeting white hair in his face and- blood? Amuril raised his hand. The hemoloam on his wrist barely covered the bloody scar suddenly at eye-level and Amuril dropped his hand again. There was blood all over his clothes: having or not having some on his face or hair wouldn’t make things worse or better.

  
Insufferable as Altmeri society was, it did have its benefits. Namely that none of the citizens they passed had to be ordered to stand aside, they scurried away to the bridge’s rails on their own, trying to save face and not appear desperate to not stand too near him. At the end of the bridge was a line of nobles waiting to petition the Council or on appointment. The guards let them enter the courtyard to get away from him and the Conservator, so long as they waited along the outer fence.

  
A murmur rippled through the small crowd gathered by a fountain, the line of people with business in the citadel. Amuril quickened his pace for a step, until he was fully in the Conservator’s shadow. He was sure it didn’t actually help but it did make him feel better, less visible. A flight of wide stairs led up to the golden arched door, stylistic outstretched wings flanking the center. Amuril grabbed the Conservator’s hand, keeping close to him but- so many _stairs_ \- all he had to drink in days was that one potion-

  
He lost his footing and the Conservator caught him. The Conservator waited on the stairs, shielding him from the sun as Amuril caught his breath. Grateful as he was, the respite only accentuated how dry his throat was.

  
“You should be able to rest in the council chambers, for what it’s worth.”

  
Amuril shook his head. “No water, in...” He hung his head. He didn’t know how many days; he couldn’t think.

  
“You’ll get a potion before you go in. Come on. It’s not far.”

  
The Conservator’s feet shifted, heading up again and Amuril kept pace as best he could. Amuril tried to swallow but his mouth was so dry. The doors parted and closed behind them, enveloping them in hushed darkness. The great hall beyond the antechamber was favorably lit by multi-hued stained glass and the morning sun. Amuril’s shoulders sagged as the Conservator marched forward. It was such a long walk...

  
The vaulted ceilings and arched walkways for the upper stories echoed both the displeased whispers of the present court and his own dry panting. Two guards and an empty throne waited at the end of the hall, up shorter flights of stairs.

  
“You’re _late_.” One of them muttered as they passed.

  
The Conservator turned his helmet but said nothing.

  
Behind the empty throne was a set of doors and another antechamber. The Conservator shut the doors and Amuril glanced around. It was quiet, the candles in the alcoves the only things that weren’t dampened by the darkness and lack of sound. He huffed, noticing that the hairs on his arm were standing up under his sleeves. A sign of enchantment upon enchantment in the walls, the floor, shielding the next chamber.

  
“What’s in there?” Amuril asked, attempting to clear or wet his throat afterwards with no avail.

  
The Conservator looked up from the potion he was pouring. “Council chambers. You’re to be questioned in person.”

  
Amuril nodded, trying to swallow. The Thalmor Council took no uncalculated risks, ensuring they had the best protection when they gathered together to plot and scheme. Of course it was their meeting hall. “What is that?” He asked, pointing to the potion.

  
“Truth serum. Lasts about an hour before it knocks you out, so answer them quickly. It’ll make it harder to lie, and make you forget everything that happens in here by the time you wake up. So they can just keep questioning you and questioning you, until you give a straight answer.”

  
Amuril blinked. He... wasn’t expecting the truth.

  
“This is probably the last thing you’ll ever really remember.”

  
The potion was held out for him. Amuril exhaled shakily, shrinking back to look around the room. This...? Would be the last thing he remembered? He stared at the potion, gaze unfocused. They were just going to keep drugging him, interrogating him... until they had the answers they wanted and then...

  
He wanted Irowe. He wanted to see Melucar again. Amuril shut his eyes. One last time.

  
A fist clamped around his jaw and warm, coating liquid poured in. Amuril cried out, choked. The potion bottle tumbled to the floor and the Conservator’s other hand mashed his nostrils together. Amuril reached up and held the Conservator’s wrists- Amuril cried out, in pain, as the tendons in his arms pulled raw against the fresh scars, and he let go. Then he was drowning, gasping for air. And he swallowed.

  
Amuril coughed, waving his arms, trying to push the Conservator away, or himself away. He succeeded but only because the Conservator released him, holding his hands in the air.

  
“Look, I’m _sorry_ , but we’re running behind schedule as it is.”

  
Amuril bent over, coughing until his head ached. His mouth was wet, smeared, and everything felt- he felt _warm_. Feverish. The Conservator grabbed his arm again and suddenly the world was spinning. He was sure he walked sideways through the slanted double doors leading into the heart of the citadel.

  
On the other side was an octagonal chamber, vaulted cathedral ceilings and a chandelier in the center. Everything was spinning, blurred. Amuril shut his eyes and pulled himself closer to the Conservator, trying to orientate himself against the walking mer rather than where his stomach thought ‘down’ was. He gripped the Conservator’s arm tighter when the floor shifted: stairs. That’s right, they came in at the top of a flight of stairs. Heading down, down down _down_...

  
The floor rose up to meet him and his foot stopped short, though the Conservator was moving him away before he could dwell on it. No more stairs. Amuril blinked, glimpsing pillars and bookshelves - statues along the far wall - before it was too much for him and he shut his eyes again. The Conservator put his hands on Amuril’s shoulders, moving him around and forcing him to sit-

  
A seat of cold stone knocked the breath from him. His eyes were still closed but he could feel the room spinning. Amuril swallowed, trying to orientate himself based on the seat. The chain between his wrists dragged down. When he opened his eyes the Conservator stood up and walked away. Amuril pulled his hands up; the chain pulled taut just past his knees. Amuril swallowed, bowing his head.

  
An hour. Amuril held his breath. He had a little less than an hour to answer whatever they asked before the potion... affected him. He exhaled. He could waste an hour of their time, for what little good it would do. A little good was enough.

  
The door behind him closed and the sound echoed across the hall.

  
“State your name, for the record.”

  
Amuril jumped. The room was still empty. The voice came from above him, but... Amuril squinted. The higher levels had curtained alcoves - balconies? - but he couldn’t see anything beyond that. He bowed his head again, focused his breathing, exaggerated how much the sudden sound scared him. An hour. He had an hour.

  
“State your name.”

  
“Amuril Malcior.”

  
The voice stayed silent. Amuril licked his lips, glancing around. He couldn’t see all the alcove balconies. He wasn’t sure how many of them were occupied.

  
“In your own words, state the events at Winterhold beginning on the 20th of Sun’s Dawn.”

  
A woman’s voice. Amuril blinked and shook his head, feeling heat under his brow. Two of them. But what did it matter, if he wouldn’t remember anything after taking the potion? A knot twisted in his stomach. He had to try to remember, for whatever it was worth.

  
But they had asked him a question... what was the question?

  
“I- I’m sorry-” The words caught in Amuril’s throat. No he wasn’t. “Can you repeat the question?”

  
“State the events at Winterhold beginning on the 20th of Sun’s Dawn.”

  
20th of Sun’s Dawn... Amuril frowned. He didn’t remember when that was exactly, but they said Winterhold, so he would start from there and go slowly, as slowly as possible.

  
“Ancano hadn’t contacted the Embassy in... months. Elen-” He stopped himself. Formal titles were longer, more time-consuming. “First... Emissary Elenwen was... concerned, that something had happened to prevent him from doing so. She asked my wife and I to investigate.”

  
Amuril paused to wipe his brow on his shoulder. Or would have, if his arms would have reached. He felt like he was running a fever, and he wasn’t sure if it was that or the potion that was making it hard to think.

  
“He was cutting contact to do Divines knew what with the-”

  
“Speculative. Your opinion. Facts only.”

  
Amuril stared, blinking at the far wall. Well they should have said they wanted just facts when they asked for his opinion of what happened. Amuril huffed, trying to ignore the sore ache in his wrists.

  
“He wanted the artifact, from Saarthal.”

  
“The Eye of Magnus.”

  
Silence filled the hall. The heat under his skin broke for a moment in a flash of cold fear. How did they know that? Did Muril tell them? How did he know? Did Ancano tell him? Had Ancano told everyone at the Embassy? He couldn’t remember. The one night in the Embassy dungeon was too similar to his cell under the Sancrelleis, he couldn’t differentiate the two.

  
Did they even know what the Eye of Magnus was, beyond its name? Did they plan to trick him into telling them?

  
Amuril blinked, the chill from his brief panic already fading. He would ignore them, wouldn’t tell them anything. He couldn’t. “He ordered us to return to the Embassy, to send back wizards who knew teleportation spells.”

  
“When was this?”

  
“I don’t know. Before everything went wrong.”

  
Silence filled the chamber again. Amuril fidgeted with the hem of his sleeves. These robes were entirely too thick, it felt like he was in a sauna.

  
“You disobeyed a direct order.”

  
Amuril glared up at the ceiling. “I don’t _answer_ to Ancano.”

  
“A representative of the Thalmor Council gave you a direct order to report back to the Embassy for reinforcements. This coincided with your own orders from the First Emissary, to return once Ancano had been contacted. Why did you not obey?”

  
His scowl deepened but his thoughts were sluggish. Why hadn’t he obeyed? He tried to think back to the College, to Skyrim, Ancano... It was too tiring to focus. He couldn’t remember.

  
“I didn’t _like_ him.” Amuril sighed. It was as much an answer as he could manage, and it was the truth. That was what they wanted, wasn’t it?

  
“You are not required to ‘like’ him. You are required to follow orders.”

  
Amuril huffed, his cheeks puffing out as he looked around the room. Candles and sconces painted the walls warm gold while the shadows took a purple hue. He hadn’t wanted to follow orders. He didn’t like Ancano, that was his gut reaction and as much as he could remember. There was... something in his eye... something cruel.

  
Hazily he recalled a time, or perhaps a dream, of trying to talk to the mer, he was... floating. Something in his eye.

  
“He was acting strange. Everyone was...” Amuril murmured, remembering the long glances the other wizards stole of the artifact they unearthed. Covetousness. “Enthralled. The wizards, anyone with magical prowess. Including Ancano.”

  
“You had magical prowess. Do you claim it did not affect you?”

  
Amuril shut his eyes and turned, insulted, toward the voice somewhere above and behind him. Rude. But true.

  
“No.” Amuril admitted. No, he had not been immune. He remembered stepping forward, feeling the magicka wash over him like waves scouring a beach. It called to him. “No, it... changed me...”

  
“How did it change you?”

  
Amuril frowned. Looked down. Robes he didn’t remember putting on. Where were his master’s robes? The familiar and well worn muted black against the deep green of Alteration. He didn’t recognize these robes. Amuril shuddered, white hair flecked with blood framing the edges of his vision.

  
“I- I don’t know.”

  
“Answer the question. How did it change-”

  
“I don’t _know_! I remember nothing! I woke up like this.” He was trembling. He couldn’t tell them. He physically couldn’t. He didn’t remember. “No one told me what happened, I just... Oh Divines...”

  
His skin was too tight. His heartbeat too loud, drowning out the other sounds of the room, the voices, the rattle of chain.

  
“Answer the question. How - specifically - did it change you?”

  
Amuril shook his head. “This isn’t my body.” He whispered, his throat clamming up. White hair fell over his shoulders. “This isn’t my face...”

  
He was back in the chambers at the College then, with Tolfdir, on the bed, the proffered mirror in his palms. White hair. Pale eyes. Pale gold skin. Strange robes. Where was his hair? His golden eyes? His burnt gold skin? Where had they gone? Why were they gone?

  
What had the Eye done to him?

  
Amuril shuddered, pulling at the chain keeping his hands down at his knees. He wanted to go back. To undo whatever it was that had happened. He wanted to wake up.

  
His hands couldn’t move higher than his knees, so Amuril slid off the chair onto the floor and covered his head.

  
“Amuril Malcior.”

  
He just had to wake up, and everything would be as it was. No Thalmor, no pins, no strange robes, no foreign body.

  
“The potion should last near an hour.”

  
“Perhaps it is an aftereffect of installing the pins.”

  
Amuril dug his nails into his hair, clenching his eyes shut. He couldn’t hear the voices- he was just imagining them. Why would he imagine them? Why would he wish such horrible things on himself?

  
“Perhaps. There was a delay transporting him.”

  
“He doesn’t have the strong constitution the other mer had.”

  
Amuril exhaled, curling up against the foot of the stone chair. He just had to wake up.

  
“Adjourn. What little we have we should discuss.”

  
The room fell silent, the sliding of the white robes over itself, stone and skin the only sounds in the chamber. Amuril inhaled. He would breathe in, hold his breath, as he’d been taught. Then exhale, and he would be calmer. No more thoughts of too-tight skin, Thalmor, pain. Asleep. Amuril breathed out, letting the air push from his lungs until his chest trembled from the absence before drawing in again.

  
He opened his eyes. Cold gold glow of candles and warm purple shadows greeted him. An empty hall. He couldn’t wake up.

  
“Irowe?” Amuril called out. His voice was shaking. Quiet, but inappropriately loud. He licked his lips and tried to speak softly. “Help me...”

  
“Where is she?”

  
Amuril curled into himself as the voice startled him. He relaxed onto the floor, feeling the cool stone on his cheek. Of course he would think of her family, her ‘father’, at a time like this...

  
“I don’t know.” Amuril said when the silence demanded an answer. His eyes grew damp. He didn’t know where she was. She couldn’t know where he was. He wasn’t even sure where he was, or how to get home.

  
“Where _was_ she, the last you saw her?”

  
Amuril paused, thought for a moment. The dragon. The College, the Staff. She screamed at him. “Saarthal. She wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t wait...” He crested the walkway again, looking out over the glaciers, seeing her disappearing shape sprinting away from him. His heart dropped. “Irowe, I’m sorry...”

  
She was so angry with him. He was angry with himself, but... Amuril blinked, feeling the dampness spill out his eyes and to the floor. He had no one to blame but himself.

  
He should have stayed with her. “The Bosmer?” He should have gone with her, stopped her... “The Bosmer I gave you?”

  
Amuril frowned, other shapes coming into focus in the snow. Horses... and Fallon. Such a worried, lost look on his face, apologetic for not stopping her, at a loss for what to say.

  
Amuril pushed himself up on his elbows, sucking air through his teeth. “Oh Divines, Fallon...”

  
“Where is the Bosmer?”

  
Amuril’s mouth gaped. The dark, the ghosts, the undead dragon- draugr Shouting- the draugr lich laughing- Amuril shuddered and looked around the chamber. It was so loud in his memory he could hear it looming over him. The Staff, the mask- Fallon screaming as the echo of bones shattering filled the high fane.

  
His stomach heaved. There was nothing, not even the remains of potions, to bring up. Amuril’s gaze unfocused on the wall. He gave Fallon his ring, to try and save him. Had Irowe saved him? Glassy eyes stared up at him from his lap as he knelt on the high fane’s floor. He’d never seen Fallon in so much pain before, he’d never seen _anyone_ in so much pain. Some clinical part of his mind concluded that the pain, the injury, must have been too much. He had never seen anyone suffer that much and live.

  
“Dead...” The word had such finality to it. Dead. He’d given Fallon his ring in the hopes of attracting Irowe and sent the mer off alone on a horse. He’d left him to die alone.

  
“Fallon, I’m sorry...”

  
The voice did not return. He had no further words, either of comfort or disdain, to give himself it seemed. He’d promised to take the boy home, to help him find his family. He’d gotten him killed instead.

  
His thoughts grew disconcerted, running in loops and circles in grief. All thought of falling asleep forgotten. He wasn’t sure he deserved to wake from this.

  
Footsteps on the stairs; the chain shifted as he looked up. The Conservator’s helmet turned to face him, and Amuril slumped, laying back down on the floor. Still dreaming then.

  
Boots stopped in front of his face. “It’s bad manners to sleep on the floor.” The mer’s knees popped as he crouched down, unhooking the chain from whatever it had been secured to. Amuril stayed still on the floor. “Come on: up. I’m not carrying you.”

  
The Conservator stood, holding the chain loosely in his hand. Amuril didn’t move. How could he wake up if he wasn’t on the floor? The Conservator sighed, bending down again and-

  
Arms dug under Amuril’s side and knees, hoisting him off the ground before dropping him back on his feet. Amuril looked around and sighed, considering how little effort it would take to just fall back on the ground- The Conservator jerked him forward, toward the stairs, and his legs moved on muscle memory. The thought of such minute rebellion as falling back to the floor was forgotten.

  
The Conservator said the potion was only good for an hour. Had it been an hour? He barely registered walking down the long open hall of the citadel, other than the release of ambient pressure in his ears. What came after the hour? He didn’t feel well enough to do anything but sleep-

  
A crosswind struck him and Amuril flinched. They were on the bridge now. He shivered and huddled closer to the Conservator, trying to use the mer’s larger body to block the wind. He was so tired, of everything. The Conservator kept a firm grip on his arm, keeping him to the inner rock wall as they walked back to the door under the Sancrelleis. The guards looked the same as the first time he had entered, though the sun had changed in the sky. Amuril turned, to try and see where Magnus had gone, and swayed on his feet. He was half-surprised to find hands holding him a second later.

  
The Conservator sighed and muttered under his breath, pulling Amuril along to try and walk balance back into his legs. It worked eventually, though the cycle of lanterns and never-ending hallways did nothing to help. Amuril took a step too many when the Conservator suddenly stopped, walking into the mer’s cuirass. Amuril winced and rubbed his face, pulling his hands away to find that there was a hole in the wall. A door. A bed on the far wall, a pale golden glow in the room’s center.

  
Panic stifled his throat. He couldn’t go back in there. Would they even feed him? All he’d been given were potions, not food, not even water. But his arms ached and his skin was too tight, too hot, and _oh_ , what he wouldn’t give to sleep and finally wake from this.

  
He stiffened at the clink of metal against ceramic.

  
“Here.” The Conservator held up a small phial. “One last one.”

  
Amuril stepped away from him, balling the chain up into his palms to prevent it from being used to restrain him further.  
“Please- please, no more potions-”

  
“Orrelion!” A woman’s voice shouted down the corridor. “You brought that mer to the Citadel covered in _blood_?”

  
Amuril stared at the Battlereeve walking up to them. Stared at the Conservator, his blue eyes under the helmet.

  
“Orrelion-?”

  
A hand grabbed his forearm and pulled him forward, throwing him into the cell. Amuril stumbled and fell, instinctively his hands reached out to stop his fall- A burst of red-hot pain shot up both hands, to his shoulders, to his neck, and he hit the floor. Amuril bit his lip and tucked his hands to his chest, trying to squeeze the pain out of them, panting as the world burned white. His thoughts were jumbled curses and exclamations of pain, and he wasn’t sure if he said them aloud or not.

  
He pulled his wrists away, when they had stopped burning so much. The hemoloam had cracked, with blood beading out from underneath where it wasn’t smeared against his skin. Amuril winced and held his wrists to his stomach. It wasn’t flowing profusely, just barely dripping at the surface. He exhaled, staring up at the malondo stone hanging free from the ceiling.

  
Blue eyes.

  
“Orrelion?”

  
Amuril crawled to his knees, pushing himself up with his elbows as he walked toward the door. Or what he thought was the door. Orrelion was just cross with him, he had to be. But he- he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t think he’d said anything, hadn’t told them anything about their ‘friends’, not even his fines. He hadn’t betrayed them.

  
Amuril pressed his arms against the stone, turning his palms toward himself to beat the back of his hands on the door. Orrelion had gotten him out before, gotten him help before. He could help. He would help... wouldn’t he?

  
“Orrelion, please!”

  
He would... Amuril stilled. No, no he wouldn’t. Orrelion’s friends had told him in Cyrodiil, to stay away from Irowe. Threatened him over it, had him shuffled out of the Thalmor because of her. Orrelion had cut ties with him years ago. He had chosen Irowe over them.

  
“Irowe...?” Amuril called out. She would come for him. No matter how upset she was, whatever they had fought about, she would come for him... His arms stopped, resting against the cold stone. How would she know how to find him? Would her dragons help him? Would she even have time to search for him with the dragons terrorizing Skyrim?

  
Did she even know they had taken him? How would she know, unless she went back to the Embassy... his throat tightened. What if they caught her too? If she felt truly threatened, she would Shout, and they would know...

  
This close to the wall, his voice should have echoed louder but instead it sounded frail. “Anyone?”

  
He shifted, turning around to stare at the room from his corner. A bed in the opposite corner, barely visible in the twilight shadows of the room. Amuril’s legs trembled and he slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

  
“Help...”


	3. In the Pale Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warnings:**
> 
>   * Implied rape/non-con
>   * Mentioned/referenced rape/non-con
>   * Aftermath of rape/non-con
>   * Graphic character death
>   * Dub-con, if you count two people drunk kissing as dub-con
> 


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god, this fic will get to a point where there aren't trigger warnings on every chapter but it is not this day >_>
> 
> I am trying to keep on a regular schedule, partly because I feel bad skipping a week or two and partly because if I _don't_ , the next chapters end up being loooonnngg (this chapter is 9k+ and I apologize/apologize for nothing)  
> Chapter is late solely because between school and work and a lingering sinus infection, RL kicked my ass. That is the only reason. It has nothing to do with the 40k worth of brainstorming I've done in another fandom over the past 3 weeks. It has nothing to do with that. I don't even know why I bring it up.

> _Lo, their very hairs she numbers_  
>  _And all daily cares encumbers_  
>  _Them that share all Mara's blessings_  
>  _And her help in woes distressing_

* * *

  
SNOWFLAKES drifted on the wind above the road to Dawnstar, swirling around its lone traveler. The Nord girl, a courier, shivered and pulled her fur cloak tighter around her shoulders. Magnus hadn’t appeared over the Winterhold Mountains, but its rays cast the surrounding winter taiga in rosy hues. She glanced around, eyeing the shadows around the trees with one hand slipping under her cloak for her left hip.

  
Rulindil sighed, staring off into the trees with her, wondering what she expected to see. He knew from reviewing this memory at least a dozen times before that there was nothing in the woods, nothing on the roads, not until she heard the fighting just before dawn. This was the fourth time she’d stopped, frozen like a deer in the clearing devoid of hiding places, staring wide-eyed at the world around her. Rulindil rolled his eyes and focused the dream, allowing whatever it was she was dreading to appear momentarily, almost out of sight behind the trees, before slipping back into the shadows.

  
She gasped and bolted down the road, cloak flying behind her. Rulindil scoffed, tucking his hands behind his back. He frowned, peering at the shadow in the woods. The flash of dull gold against duller purple. Rulindil turned his attention back to the dream’s host, determined not to dwell on the figure of her fears.

  
Kelda, of Granite Hill. Courier. Dull and plain looking, even for a Nord, with her blond hair, green eyes and layer of insulating blubber common to Nords from the northern holds. The only distinguishing feature were the freckles dusted on her face and the almost comically too-large satchel of rolled up letters tapping her hip as she ran, but never fast enough to move away from him. Instead it was the scenery, the dream, that moved around them.

  
If he looked, if he cared, Rulindil could make out the violet shimmer of Quagmire’s fog a few steps away from where he ‘stood’ on the road, the faint light floating in a dome around them like they were trapped under a soap bubble. His mind started to wander, wondering if there was anything more interesting to be done tonight once he had finished reliving this frozen massacre for the nth time.

  
There was little to do at the Embassy, nearly a fortnight into the Thalmor Council’s imposed lockdown after the Winterhold Incident. The Justiciars were going mad, and it was starting to affect his inquisitors as well. Elenwen insisted it wasn’t acceptable for them to start sleeping in and taking irregular hours, demanding that he ‘set a model example for his inquisitors’, daring anyone to mention the fact that her words had less bite than a month ago. She had been demoted as First Emissary but still retained as Ambassador, much to Rulindil’s discomfort. There was little for her to be Ambassador _of_ with the lockdown, and not even her most sycophantic court followers in Solitude were willing to risk the political and perhaps physical suicide that was walking to the Embassy.

  
Rulindil sighed and turned his attention back to Kelda, blurring the dream so they came upon their final destination faster than she intended. His life was supposed to be _better_ for reporting the Incident to his patron High Kinlord Vicarian. Somehow it had actually gotten _worse_.

  
Kelda slid to a stop at the sound of raised voices. Her body stiffened and shook. At the sound of a man’s dying gurgle her self-preservation overrode her fear and she dove behind the snowberry bushes just off the road. Smashed berries stained the snow red as Magnus’s rays through the shadow of evergreen leaves tinged the world bloody. Rulindil knelt next to her, putting a hand on the back of her neck and she choked on a scream.

  
“What do you see?” He asked, pulling on the collar of her cloak enough to lift her head up to peer through the bare roots. “Tell me what you see.”

  
Kelda shuddered, tremors gripping her body. Her legs shifted behind them, trying to crawl away but Rulindil held her still. He needed her to remember enough to tell him when he questioned her in the morning. He couldn’t state his information came from a prisoner’s dreams in his reports, he needed some physical evidence, a paper trail of memories he had pried loose from their subconscious. To him, through the thin gladius-shaped snowberry leaves, the figures were a blur, and he was careful to keep them that way. He had suggested to her days ago that she had ‘misplaced’ an important correspondence between the Thalmor and one of the Jarls, bringing her close enough to the Embassy to be apprehended. He didn’t want to suggest anything more; memories were fragile enough without manipulation.

  
“Legionnaires.”

  
Rulindil blinked, looking through the leaves anew. Kelda swallowed, pulling back against his grip.

  
“I see Legionnaires.”

  
“That’s right.” He breathed, watching the blur around the figures shrink, leather skirts and metal armor and red tunics appearing like shoals in the retreating tide. A tower shield rested against a tree nearby, reflecting the first rays of Magnus. So that was what that strange light had been. “And what are they doing?”

  
“They- they’re- Stormcloaks. They’re making it look like Stormcloaks. Did this.”

  
“That’s right.”

  
The two of them watched as their actions became clearer. Standing above the bodies of the Justiciars the Legionnaires worked in a frenzy, picking through the blood-splattered stones for their own knifes or swords lost in the skirmish. Tufts of the red horsehair plume caught in a dead Justiciar’s severed hand, sliced off pieces of the segmented leather skirts were collected. A Stormcloak helmet was shoved under a mer’s neck and his neck sliced open, the gathered blood split among five other helmets before their bearers split up into the woods, leaving trails of blood leading nowhere.

  
The thick scent of copper rushed past them as one of the Legionnaires hurried past them. Some of the blood dripped from the bush onto Kelda’s hair and her tremors worsened. Rulindil watched the Imperial walk past them, his form immediately shifting into a shade outside Kelda’s memory. They had done this before. He looked back to where the Orc captain had pulled out bearskins and was hacking pieces of it off before handing it to the men to plant. They knew too many small details to add to the scene for this to be their first time.

  
The soldiers finished their grisly task and dispersed into the woods, spreading out until the blood left their boots and they could rejoin outside Dawnstar as the captain ordered. Kelda stayed huddled under the snowberries, Rulindil kneeling above her, until the woods fell silent. Shaking she climbed to her feet, green eyes wide as she gulped for breath. She walked toward the carnage, legs unsteady, her breath coming in spurts as she gathered her cloak around herself.

  
Rulindil followed, hands behind his back, glancing around. Seven mer. Two Justiciar units of the missing nine. Rulindil grimaced, walking away from Kelda as she stared in horror at one of the few faces the Legionnaires hadn’t smashed in. Their blood was on Elenwen’s hands, trusting that crazed mer and Ancano’s judgement over common sense-

  
The dream tilted, the mountains rising up to become walls then a ceiling. The sky darkened until the only light was a torch somewhere too far away to do more than illuminate outlines of shapes. Rulindil scowled over at Kelda - why had she changed the dream, where even was this place? He stopped at the rattle of chains. The inquisition chambers? This did look like her cell, but-

  
Rulindil stiffened. There was something moving in front of Kelda. The torchlight ghosted over a silhouette of a mer’s face under the purple and gold hood. Kelda backed against the wall, a cry caught in her throat and the mer clapped a hand over her mouth, pressing close to her.

  
“If you’re a good little Nord, I might even let you enjoy it.”

  
Rulindil’s dagger stabbed the mer’s neck.

  
He shoved the mer’s body aside, forcing the walls to crumble with him as he fell. Kelda was sobbing, still in her shackles. He willed them away, somewhere bright and formless for the moment, and gave her her cloak and warm clothes and satchel back. He’d never gone farther than Solitude, he wasn’t sure where to take the dream so she could calm down, step away from that moment. Something bright, something happy. Far away from here-

  
Kelda retched and just as suddenly as the dream had shifted, it was gone. He was left standing alone in the grove in Quagmire, frozen in disbelief as mist seeped in from the edges where the dream had been.

  
_If you’re a good little Nord, I might even let you enjoy it._

  
He clenched his fists and stalked into the grove of dreams, stirring the mist behind him in his wake. He knew that voice. Rulindil walked across the deck of a ship at sea, Nords laughing as they hauled in the largest catch they could imagine. Back to the grove. A raucous tavern party the next moment, and he walked through the participants without looking too closely at them, stepping out back into the grove. The mer he wanted wasn’t here, that wasn’t his sort of party.

  
The rose-gold lights of a Shimmerene banquet hall filled with dancers and Summerset’s upper echelons, light laughter and the clinking of glasses around a contented Elenwen. Rulindil raised his hand and something in the ceiling snapped behind him, mer screamed and scrambled undignified out of the way of a falling chandelier, its crystal and malondo stone set pieces shattering upon impact. Elenwen’s face drained and a hand went to her mouth, the dream now filled with the cacophony of screams. What had once been murmurs of approval at their hostess turned to pointed questions of her carelessness.

  
He stepped outside the dream, leaving her to clean up a mess _he_ caused for once instead of the other way round.

  
Rulindil continued walking, searching, through domestic disputes and dragon attacks (a good number of those) and celebrations and happy memories. He passed through another dream of a gala and stepped through it. He stopped, and walked back in. A band was playing and shadows of people dancing flickered over the jamb of the door, but the side room filling the dream was only occupied by two people. Two people who were themselves... _occupied_.

  
He didn’t recognize the woman: he wasn’t sure she mattered or even that she was a real person and not a figment of fantasy. He assumed the latter, as the mer pressing her against the wall and hiking up her dress was not known for his personality. The woman moaned in pleasure as he turned his teeth to the tips of her ears. Rulindil’s face twitched, and he raised his hand.

  
The side door opened and slammed shut. The two hurriedly composed themselves, still entangled, as they looked to their visitor. It wasn’t Kelda. Mer could be irrational and assume it was their victims who had cursed them instead of someone on their behalf. Instead it was his usual avenger: a little Bosmer girl, not more than twenty, dark curls bobbing behind her back and framing her face as she strode toward the mer.

  
“What are you doing here?” He sneered. “At least bring some of that champagne if you’re going to interrupt me.” His eyes flickered with a dark glint. “Unless you want a turn, little girl-”

  
The ‘little girl’ stopped in front of him, the glint in her green eyes darker yet brighter than his own. “Enjoying yourself?” Her teeth flashed, quickly enough that one could be mistaken in believing they were sharpened into points. “I want to enjoy myself too.”

  
The mer smiled and spread his arms. The girl drew a dagger and plunged it into his chest. He yelled out in shock and stepped away- she grabbed his shirt and stabbed him again, near the shoulder this time. She shoved him over and knelt on his thigh, holding his arm down as she stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach, twisting her elbow so she could grip the hilt and _tear_ -

  
The mer’s back arched as he screamed. A quick slice and splatter of red across the marble floors, and his throat was only fit for drowning in blood. She kept going. He kept screaming. Rulindil watched as shredded entrails were pulled out and even through the blood the mer gave the most horrifying scream as his abdomen was emptied. The other woman was gone but the band played on, oblivious. The Bosmer girl reeled back, slick with blood and panting, taking the dagger in both hands, and drove it in to his eye socket up to the hilt.

  
The nightmare snapped away.

  
“Thank you for your assistance, Miss Marino.” Rulindil muttered.

  
He closed his eyes and let the grove fade away. He woke in his quarters in the Solar. Through the window he heard screaming muffled by the glass, the outer courtyard and the barracks wall, hounds barking and the quick chatter of the guards in the gardens below. A smile came to his lips. It lasted a few seconds before in his mind, unbidden, he heard the sound of Kelda sobbing. Rulindil sighed and ran his hands over his face.

  
He had brought her here. She would never have come near the Embassy if he hadn’t suggested the misplaced letter to draw her in. This was his fault. The screaming, eventually, faded, and the barking hounds not long after.

  
There was little point going back to sleep: he knew he didn’t have the stomach to give more tithes to his Lady tonight. Rulindil stood and walked to the window, rubbing his arms through his nightclothes for warmth. The Apprentice was setting over the southern peaks of the Druadachs. He shivered. Sometime between midnight and two.

  
He rummaged through his wardrobe for something warm to wear, his fingers hesitating as he touched a fur cloak. He leaned back on his heels. He should go see Kelda before too long. He doubted she wanted to see anyone right now.

  
The fur cloak was too unsettling to wear, so he stepped outside in a clean uniform. Rulindil turned on his heel and headed downstairs, for the inquisition chambers. The smell of rust and bile washed out and he grimaced.

  
“Everything alright, Emissary?”

  
Rulindil stiffened and peered over the bannister. The lone guard on duty. A woman, thankfully, and he relaxed.

  
“Yes. I just was woken up by screaming, I don’t know that anyone’s going back to sleep after that.” He muttered, glancing around the chambers. No one being actively interrogated, as it was the middle of the night.

  
“Nobody’s been in here while I’ve been on watch, sir-”

  
“I just want to check on things.” Rulindil snapped.

  
He walked down the stairs to the dungeon door, the guard hurried over and unlocked it for him. Rulindil took a torch off the wall and walked down the long hall of the dungeons, peering into the cells as he passed. Some of the prisoners woke and hissed at the torchlight, crying or glaring at him until he was out of sight. He wanted to believe it was because they couldn’t tell it was the middle of the night, they thought it was morning. He couldn’t be certain though, and the doubt gnawed at him.

  
He came to cell 22 and paused, holding the torch out farther to illuminate all the corners. Kelda gasped and looked away, dragging bare legs against the wall and as close to her body as she could. Rulindil shut his eyes but couldn’t block out the bruises on her arms, her thighs; the ragged trousers she had worn yesterday tossed onto the straw.

  
“S-stormcloaks.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. She wouldn’t meet his gaze for more than a moment but she kept glancing between him and the corners of the cell. “It- it was Legionnaires, I- I remember seeing red, the uniforms now. They made it look like Stormcloaks, they- they had helms and bloody tabards and they framed it-”

  
Rulindil hung his head. Kelda started crying.

  
“Please, I told you what I know. ... Please can I leave?” She sobbed.

  
Rulindil leaned forward, resting his head against the bars. He could write her confession in her records and be done with it, release her right now. He shut his eyes again.

  
“It’s the middle of the night,” he murmured, “but you can leave in the morning.”

  
Her sobs stuttered to a stop. Rulindil walked away, toward an alchemy alcove along the opposite wall, scanning the shelves for a slim glass vial with red wax around the lip. He would not let _that_ mistake happen again. Red wax reflected the torchlight and he plucked it off the shelf, tucking it into his fingers as he rifled through his keys with the other hand. The key with ‘22’ stamped into the metal was pushed into the door and turned.

  
Kelda’s breathing grew erratic as he walked closer, staring wide-eyed at him and clenching her hands against the wall. Rulindil returned the keys to his belt and pulled the cotter pin on the shackles. Once the metal swung free she jerked her arms to her chest, rubbing her wrists but otherwise holding still. Rulindil inhaled and looked away from the flecks of blood on her legs, keeping his eyes on the straw as he held the vial out.

  
“This is a healing potion. Drink it and in the morning I’ll see your things are returned to you.”

  
Her eyes flitted from him to the vial. He didn’t move, instead letting her reach out for it. Her hands were shaking as she sniffed it, watching him, but steadier as she drank it. He made sure she swallowed it before accepting the vial back; he would replace it in the morning. Rulindil bent down and picked up her trousers, holding them out for her. Her face went white.

  
“He will be punished,” Rulindil said quietly. “The mer that did this to you. And I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  
When she didn’t move, Rulindil averted his eyes, letting the ragged trousers pool on the floor in front of her before releasing them. He walked back out to the hallway, returning with a blanket he set on a cleaner patch of straw. Kelda hadn’t moved, and he suspected she wasn’t going to for some time. Rulindil exhaled and shut the door, making sure it was locked before walking back up the hallway. There was no one else in here, just him and the prisoners. He replaced the torch in the sconce just by the door and opened it, stepping out into the inquisition chambers.

  
The door shut behind him. He held his hand out. “Your key.”

  
“Sir?”

  
“One of the prisoners was raped.”

  
The guard’s eyes went wide and her face drained to a pale gold. “I- I spoke the truth earlier, sir. No one else has been down here since I took watch from Odaren- You’re the first one through that door-”

  
“I didn’t say it happened on your watch. I’m not sure when it happened. But it was one of my cases. When she saw me coming she thought...”

  
Rulindil sighed, gesturing emptily with his hands. The guard unhooked the keys from her belt, locking the dungeon door and removing the black key from the ring, placing it in Rulindil’s hand. She seemed sympathetic, and he’d need sympathizers if he tried releasing one of the prisoners on what might look like a whim.

  
“At least she provided the information I needed. There’s no reason to keep her here past the morning.”

  
“No sir.”

  
“See to it the door stays locked.”

  
“Of course, sir.”

  
He nodded, taking one last look around before retreating back upstairs, locking the door behind him. He stepped outside the Solar, a pang in his chest at the rows of dark sticks in the snow Elenwen called a garden. The memory of long summers kept close to his chest made the still chill in the air feel even colder. Like he was hollow. Rulindil walked down a row off the main avenue, looking for distraction. The gardens should suit.

  
The Embassy’s inner courtyard was surrounded by a modest garden, only a few rows and nothing like the Vicarian’s estate of Ceynensel. Where Ceynensel took centuries-perfected benefit of the mild climate high in the mountains above Alinor, the gardens here didn’t. Instead of accepting the way things were, year after year plants from the south were ordered and sacrificed to the cold at the request of the Numidium that was the former First Emissary. He lifted brown leaves of a Viper’s Bugloss away with his boot so he could read its neighbor’s name plaque. Dominic Redwort flowers? Rulindil’s brows pursed together and he stared up at the sky. _Outside_? In _winter_?

  
Rulindil’s face fell and he stared down at the bristling flower bulbs. He cast a magelight and knelt down, trailing his fingers in the dirt around the still-dormant bulbs. There were green tips under some of the brown tunics, a testament to the plant’s natural frost resistance, but frost resistance didn’t mean it could survive a Skyrim blizzard if one rolled in off the Sea of Ghosts. The dirt around it looked only a few days old.

  
He poked his head up, toward the small shed tucked away into the corner. Rulindil bit his lip and caged the magelight in his fingers before walking toward it. As he opened the shed door and stepped inside, he considered that whatever poor mer was tasked with that section of the gardens - and it was likely a Bosmer knowing Elenwen - was probably new to Skyrim. Or they were not well versed in gardening and merely acting on instructions from the groundskeeper, Alneris. Or both. Though Alneris should have known better than to leave any flowers out for the frost.

  
Rulindil chuckled under his breath, wondering if the mer had also had enough with Elenwen’s eccentrics and did it on purpose, but there was no reason the flowers had to be murdered just to spite her. At least not all of them. Rulindil grabbed a trowel and a pot needing soil. Perhaps he could save one or two. His hands slowed as the magelight cast a thousand shadows on the imperfections of the stone wall. His face flinched and he finished filling up the pot. It would be nice to be able to save something before it was ruined for once.

  
He carried the pot back out to the redworts, stepping off the walkway into the planter. There was a smaller bulb buried next to a dragonthorn bush that was no doubt already being strangled underground by the roots. That one wouldn’t be missed. He dug with his fingers until he’d established where the roots were, then worked the trowel around them. The pot was moved closer, then Rulindil bit his lip and lifted the bulb carefully out of the ground, setting it in a hollow in the pot.

  
He brushed soil over the bulb, only until it was half buried, then covered up the hole in the ground with the trowel. The pot on his hip, he squeezed his way back out of the planter, scraping dirt off his boots before walking back to the Solar. Not to the door, but to the outer wall underneath his bedroom window. Just because he was saving the flowers didn’t mean Elenwen deserved to see them.

  
Rulindil tucked the pot behind a hedge surrounding the wall and stepped back. Satisfied that it wouldn’t be noticed until he could find some rope to hoist it up to his room, he returned to the shed for another pot. There was a larger bulb a foot away from the one he’d rescued, if he could get it to flower he was sure it would have exquisite blooms-

  
“Can’t that wait until the morning?”

  
Rulindil dropped then lunged for the pot of soil, spilling half of the soil on the ground. He swore under his breath and glared up at the tired voice that had startled him. His eyes widened and he grabbed the magelight, bowing his head before winking it out.

  
“My apologies, Emissary Ondolemar. I... couldn’t sleep.”

  
“So you came out to rearrange the sticks our ambassador keeps in the lovely garden?”

  
He winced, praying the mer didn’t question _exactly_ what he was doing out here in Elenwen’s garden with a pot filled with soil. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

  
“Name?”

  
Rulindil peered up at him, one eyebrow slowly raising. Did he...? Did he really think one of the Justiciars would have the gumption to steal from Elenwen’s gardens?

  
“Third Emissary Rulindil.”

  
Even in the pale moonlight, he could see the Provisional First Emissary’s eyes widen. “Oh.” He answered simply. “My apologies. I never see you outside the Solar.”

  
Rulindil shrugged. With the resentment at being startled fading, he hoped he hadn’t come across as rude. The mer was technically his superior (his _only_ superior), having been installed by the Thalmor Council’s orders. Rulindil was the only one of the old guard left as he was: Emissary Iachesar had been forcibly resigned and Elenwen removed but retained.

  
“I rarely come outside the Solar. My room is there, and the inquisition chambers. Especially lately, there’s little reason to leave it.”

  
“I can’t fault the logic in that.” The silence dragged on. Rulindil adjusted his grip on the pot but neither of them moved. “ _Gardening_?”

  
“A pastime, from summers in Alinor almost as long and boring as this winter. I suppose that’s why the urge cropped up again.”

  
“Hmm. Well there isn’t much to garden here.”

  
“That’s the way Elenwen likes it.” Rulindil muttered, looking out over the rows of dead and dormant plants.

  
“Don’t talk about her. I’ve had quite enough of that woman.”

  
The caustic tone in the Provisional Emissary’s words drew his gaze back to the mer. Rulindil bit his cheek. When the Conservators arrested the three mer responsible for their current predicament, Ondolemar was... well not exactly _friendly_ but he was not outright antagonistic like most of the mer their rank were. He’d cautioned Rulindil to be careful, which in the days that followed was sound advice. Elenwen not only scorned but publicly embarrassed was a dangerous and conniving enemy.

  
Rulindil’s tongue rolled over the back of his teeth and he released his hold on his cheek. Perhaps she had been lashing out at the Provisional First Emissary as well as him, though Ondolemar was obviously even less deserving of her scorn than he was. She must have felt it was justified however. Rulindil had replaced her years ago as Lead Inquisitor when she was promoted, and Ondolemar replaced her nearly a fortnight ago when she was demoted.

  
“If it’s _boredom_ you’re looking to cure...” Ondolemar said, resting a hand on his hip. “I suspect the answer’s ‘no’ as you never attend her little galas, but a friend gave me their bottle of Russafeld Brandy. A good year: 122, Second Era. It’s bad manners to drink it alone.”

  
The Emissary’s observations were, again, correct: Rulindil did everything he could to stay far away from Elenwen’s parties and dinners and banquets. He had been raised as a ward of the High Kinlord on his family’s private estate after his father died, but the social gatherings of the upper class were not something he was well versed in. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass the High Kinlord: the mer had enough of that from his daughter and her husband.

  
That said, he was raised in the country around Alinor, and even he was aware that any sort of drink from Russafeld was quality worth selling family heirlooms for.

  
“Well, then I think it would be bad manners not to offer someone to drink it with.”

  
He thought he saw a smile grace the mer’s face. Ondolemar’s hand slid off his hip and he started walking to the main Embassy. “I have glasses up in my quarters, unless you mind.”

  
“No, that-”

  
Rulindil stopped himself, color flooding his cheeks and not from the cold. He’d never been invited into anyone else’s room before. He didn’t want to embarrass himself- this felt like an intrusion on the mer’s privacy- but...

  
But he wanted to believe he deserved something nice for once.

  
“It is your brandy,” he finished, “and your glasses. We can drink where you like.”

  
“Good. I’d rather not have _some people_ knowing I have it. Even if that means I have to drink it all at once.”

  
Rulindil started to follow him and stepped in the spilled soil. His face went white. Ancestors, he was covered in _dirt_ and had been rooting around in the _garden_ \- Rulindil set the pot down and wiped his hands over his robes. He looked back toward the Solar, wondering if perhaps he should change first - he wouldn’t want anyone visiting _his_ quarters to track dirt in them, he should extend the same courtesy when he was the visitor. But it was just a glass - just a glass? Of _Russafeld_ wine? Surely even for Russafeld wine it was a little ridiculous to change into fresh clothes just to share a bottle of wine? Wouldn’t it be even more embarrassing if he gave the wine more importance than was due because of to his lack of experience with it?

  
Ondolemar had turned the corner to the Embassy door and Rulindil’s heart seized. He took off running down the path, only slowing when he turned around the long hedge and waist-high wall that was the final walk to the door. Shame burned on his cheeks: Ondolemar was holding the door open for him.

  
“Thank you.”

  
He thought he heard a chuckle from the mer. Was he laughing at him for his nerves or inexperience?

  
The Embassy proper was naturally colder than the Solar, as it was larger and harder to heat evenly with all the wings. It used to belong to a thane or legate or some ‘important person’ in Skyrim’s more recent history, and the Nordic construction showed. It was sturdy but inelegant craftmanship, and Altmeri style-laden practicality had... difficulties grafting onto the walls they’d been given. Still, it was warm enough in the central stairs leading up to the third floor as he followed Ondolemar.

  
Ondolemar walked down the hall and unlocked a door, the light of a fireplace glowing inside. Again, he held the door open, and locked the door once he was in, eyeing the hallway outside suspiciously. Honestly, Rulindil wouldn’t put it past Elenwen to assume they were conspiring against her just by being in the same room and not inviting her.

  
His host snuck into his wardrobe, sliding open a false panel, the clink of glass audible in the quiet. Rulindil looked around the room: he hadn’t paid attention before to what quarters the mer had been assigned, but while they were slightly larger than his - which were small enough to be an insult - the mer had filled them out nicely. A homely thick rug covered the floor, the coral forests of Lillandril woven in pastel against the pale blue and deep summer green of a Summerset summer. The bed however seemed to be the focal point of the room, with midnight blue brocade drapes tied to the four stately cherrywood bedposts and a sheer silver canopy underneath.

  
Rulindil’s head tilted as he looked at the bed, especially the canopy and drapes. His room was small and, once someone entered the room, not particularly private. Having a fabric barrier between him and the door would be an extra precaution against someone discovering his contract with Vaermina. Rulindil flinched and ran a hand over his face, refreshing the Concealment spell that made his eyes appear an ordinary gold, not rimless black.

  
Ondolemar walked over to a table only big enough for two and set the glasses down, uncorking the bottle and filling the glasses a quarter full. Rulindil pulled his hand from his cheek and walked over, making sure to thank the mer for sharing the wine with him. Ondolemar tapped the glasses together, settling back into the nearest chair with a chuckle.

  
“No. Thank _you_.”

  
Rulindil watched him take a long sip of the wine, waiting until the older mer had swallowed before mimicking him. The wine itself was smooth and dark, but the vapor of it burned in his mouth like embers. Rulindil swallowed it at last, but the smoke-like ether lingered, a light but ever-present tingle on the roof of his mouth. He muffled a cough and set the glass down, taking the other chair. Neither of them faced each other, instead facing the fireplace. It gave the semblance of professionalism that way, despite the mer’s bed being a few steps away from his right knee.

  
His fingers found the glass’s stem and wrapped around it like a lifeline. Was he supposed to compliment the wine? Say it was a... good vintage? Comment on the flavors? Other than the fading burn he wasn’t sure what it was supposed to taste like. Most wine he had was watered down past the point of having flavor. He didn’t want to admit that if there was a difference, he couldn’t taste it.

  
Rulindil took another sip, letting it rest on his tongue until the burn was too much again, then swallowed. He wondered if the smoke element of the wine was its flavor or if that was just a quality of strong wine. Good wine. He didn’t know the difference.

  
Ondolemar leaned over, tipping the bottle toward Rulindil’s resting glass and filling it up again, this time half-full. Rulindil’s cheeks colored - perhaps that was the alcohol - but other than muttering thank you he couldn’t think of anything to say. He had taken another sip before berating himself for drinking too quickly. This was Russafeld wine, it wasn’t meant to be drunk quickly like cheap Nordic mead.

  
“Hmm. You looked like you could use some.” Ondolemar chuckled, topping off his glass as well. He set the bottle down and rubbed his temples, resting the glass on his thigh. “You know she thinks you tattled to the Council.”

  
Rulindil stared at the floor, then the wine glass. He had, but by contacting the High Kinlord through the grove. There was no proof from anyone that the information came from him. At least if there was it came from the High Kinlord, but he trusted his patron’s discretion.

  
“She also thinks I secret away her inkwells, read all her letters and steal her left shoes. As if I have time for that.” Rulindil scoffed, taking another sip of wine, purposefully smaller this time.

  
“Did you? Between us.”

  
Rulindil looked across the table. Ondolemar was not quite slumped against the back of the chair and the wall, but his posture was less than perfect. He looked so tired. Exhausted.

  
“No.” Rulindil looked down at the wine glass, the rafters reflecting on the wine’s still surface. “With the lockdown, I haven’t had time to inform the High Kinlord of his daughter’s circumstances. It’s been chaos, finding work for mer to do with...” The sentence turned to ash on his tongue, and he tried to chase it away with the wine’s embers.

  
“Given that his son-in-law’s standing trial for crimes against the Dominion, I should think he knows by now.”

  
Rulindil’s face colored. Rulindil had been the one to tell him, but he still should have followed up with some physical evidence. A paper trail. He knew this, he wasn’t a child, wasn’t lazy. As it was he looked overworked and under duress. He supposed he _was_ , but that wasn’t an excuse, not when it came to his duties to the High Kinlord.

  
“He recommended my position here, as Lead Inquisitor, on the understanding that I would keep an eye on his daughter. I was the first to tell him when she was maimed at Helgen. I should have been the first to tell him she is missing, presumed dead.”

  
He didn’t believe Irowe was actually dead, or missing, and the High Kinlord didn’t either. The first thing he’d said on the matter was that Amuril was lying, as certain as if he’d mentioned Magnus’s movements in the sky. However it had been nearly a fortnight, and neither the High Kinlord’s excitable daughter or the Bosmer servant they’d been loaned had made an appearance. Irowe was... not exactly known for her patience. It wasn’t a virtue any of the High Kinlord’s children had inherited, but- he almost thought Irowe was the worst at it, but then her older brother was just as bad. Worse at times.

  
Rulindil shuddered. He had few happy memories involving Sinderis. Most of them were incidents where he was reprimanded for incompetence or the smallest mistake. He couldn’t afford to make mistakes, he owed the High Kinlord too much for that, he didn’t want to appear ungrateful for everything the mer had done for him.

  
“That’s not much of a recommendation, is it?”

  
Rulindil blinked, looking over at Ondolemar, who set his glass down on the table and was gesturing with his free hand.

  
“Do not- do not pour honey over horseshit: Skyrim is where the _untalented_ mer on the roster are funneled. The Malciors? Restless nobility, with - forgive me - no eye toward acting their status. Elenwen? Were it not for her interrogating the Jarl during the war she would have retired to Shimmerene years ago. Iachesar? A kinlord’s brother looking for an easy pension to cushion his retirement.”

  
Rulindil blinked. He... couldn’t remember anyone speaking so frankly. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought to himself however. He resented the Malciors for _wanting_ to live in this piece of Coldharbour, and forcing the High Kinlord to send him after them, to at least report on their antics if not stop their bad behavior from reflecting on his patron.

  
“What does that make you and me?”

  
“Underutilized.” Ondolemar chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass around before taking a long sip. He set the glass down again and nodded acquiescently. “Though I suppose I’m also looking for an easy pension. And frankly, the fact no one cares what we do here suits my lifestyle. _You_ on the other hand are wasted here.”

  
Rulindil laughed, blushing the instant afterwards as the sound was louder than he meant it to be. “Now I know you’re trying to flatter me.”

  
“I mean it.”

  
The soft look in the older mer’s eyes made it look like he was smiling, and Rulindil felt his face grow hot as he grinned back. It was still flattery, but he couldn’t remember being flattered before. The High Kinlord’s compliments came in the form of faint praise, acknowledgement of work well done. Elenwen had nothing to gain by complimenting him so she never did so, and he never interacted with Iachesar without Elenwen present. None of his inquisitors bothered flattering him. Oblivion, most of them couldn’t be bothered to follow basic instructions that didn’t obviously and immediately benefit them.

  
Rulindil sighed. “You don’t speak to the inquisitors then.”

  
“Most mer don’t. It’s bad for your health.”

  
He giggled before stopping himself, putting a hand to his mouth, but when he stopped he heard Ondolemar laughing too and felt bad for making him laugh alone. It was a funny joke, or perhaps it wasn’t but it _felt_ funny. Perhaps it was the alcohol. Rulindil took another drink, actually enjoying the burning sensation this time. It must just take getting used to.

  
“It can’t _all_ be bad.” Ondolemar prodded him.

  
Rulindil shook his head. “Elenwen doesn’t agree with my interrogation practices.”

  
“They get results.”

  
The sound he made at that half-hearted excuse was impolite and far too loud. Rulindil stared down into his glass, not wanting to ask for more but wishing he could have some all the same. He made his contract with Vaermina when he was a child, the youngest Dreamwalker to do so, to his reckoning. Even the High Kinlord found it hard to believe he had learned how to use his birthright without a father’s guidance, but because he learned how to manipulate dreams to his advantage on his own, he had learned... differently.

  
Ondolemar knelt over the table, pouring a little more of the wine into Rulindil’s glass before refilling his own. Rulindil opened his mouth to thank him but the melancholy kept his words unspoken. Ondolemar sighed, setting the bottle down again.

  
“I’m sure it’s unpopular and highly controversial but I never felt that beating answers out of prisoners actually helped matters. What’s to stop them from lying to make the pain stop? What if they’re telling the truth and the inquisitor doesn’t realize it so they ‘break’ and say exactly what you want to hear? You’ll only realize the error after a score of mer are committed to rooting out Talos worshippers in a cave only inhabited by _bears_.”

  
A weak smile flashed across Rulindil’s face. He had learned at a young age that it was easier to tease answers out of people with pleasantries than pain. Pain made people afraid, swallowed their senses until all they could think about was how to make it stop. It made them uncontrollable, irrational, sometimes violent. He had used pain, punishment, on his first victim, in search of the answer he wanted. He hadn’t realized it was painful for her, at the time, he was just a child, but his mother had always refused to answer who his father was while they were awake. He just wanted the answer.

  
Sobbing echoed in his mind, and he couldn’t tell if the sound belonged to Kelda, or his mother. The wine rippled. Rulindil brushed a hand over his cheek, dirt from his gloves smearing over the tearstain the more he tried to brush it away. He just wanted the answer, as a child, and that answer had led him here. Imprisoned on the northern coast of Skyrim with the other mer the Dominion wanted out of sight, cleaning up the messes of his betters. Unrecognized, unappreciated, unloved.

  
He couldn’t shut out the treasonous thought that he should have stayed on Balfiera.

  
“I’m not trying to insinuate I’m better at doing your job-”

  
“No,” Rulindil cut him off with a laugh, wiping at his face and ignoring the damp in his voice. “You would be better at it than Elenwen or her lackeys are.”

  
He looked over at Ondolemar and smiled. The crestfallen look he returned told Rulindil his eyes were too glassy for polite company; Rulindil looked away, blinking to force the tears out. He chuckled under his breath. What was in this wine?

  
“Thank you. I think.”

  
The mer was polite not to mention his drinking companion’s muffled noises, and they sipped from their glasses in silence, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace. As his face dried Rulindil took solace in the quiet. It was... comforting. Domestic, almost. Like being alone without the loneliness. The bottle clinked against Ondolemar’s glass, but nothing poured out. He looked over to see the mer staring into the bottle, exhaling slowly.

  
“I think Clan Hilandith have been taking lessons from Maven Black-Briar. These bottles are far too small...”

  
Rulindil snorted, hiding a smile. He looked down to his own glass, thinking of offering what was left to the despondent mer, but there was only enough for one sip. He’d been saving it for himself, something to savor before heading back out into the cold for that salvation-awaiting Dominic Redwort. Not wanting to overstay his welcome, as he was sure the Emissary was looking forward toward that luxurious bed of his, Rulindil drank the last of his glass.

  
“Thank you for sharing what wine there was with me.”

  
“Brandy, my good mer. It is much better than regular wine.”

  
Rulindil’s face flushed red. “Forgive me. I don’t drink often.”

  
“Well, I’m pleased you came then.”

  
Ondolemar chuckled, setting the cork back in the bottle and looking it over once again. He groaned and got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. Rulindil set his glass down next to Ondolemar’s, pushing both away from the edge before standing up. His gaze drifted from the fireplace to the door, then back again. Knowing how cold the garden would be made the room warmer. He looked around the room again, at the rug, the thick blue-black drapes around the bed with broadleaf and gryphon brocade. His room felt so simple compared to this. Barren, like something rented at an inn for one night with only the necessities unpacked.

  
“I know the mer feel caged up - we all do - but this will pass soon. The Nords can’t stay mad at us forever, they hate each other too much.”

  
Rulindil nodded, focusing on the rug instead of the drapes so he didn’t give the wrong impression. It would pass eventually. The Legion and Stormcloaks would go back to fighting each other soon enough, and the Thalmor Council would allow the Justiciars to go out on business again. And once Irowe was found he was certain the High Kinlord would recall him back to Alinor where it was at least _warmer_. Away from Elenwen, Nords, inquisitors who obeyed his predecessor more than him, and the cold.

  
Ondolemar laid a hand on his shoulder and Rulindil looked up, a pang in his chest. He thought... he might regret not seeing Ondolemar again. He had no reason to expect anything more than the one shared bottle, but it was comforting to have a moment alone with someone who didn’t despise him.

  
“I just want you to know... that you are appreciated. There are people who care about you, and see the work you do.”

  
It must have been the wine - brandy - still having an effect on him, but Rulindil felt his eyes moisten again. He looked away, blinking, aware and ashamed to be crying in front of someone else. Ondolemar’s hand left his shoulder - of course it would, it was just as awkward for the older mer for Rulindil to be crying in front of him-

  
Rulindil startled as the back of fingers wiped the beading tears from his eyes. He didn’t move, didn’t know what to do with someone touching him like that so carefully. Ondolemar’s hand reached down to take his, and his left hand rose to repeat the gesture with Rulindil’s other side.

  
“You have such lovely eyes...” he said softly, “you shouldn’t cry.”

  
The fire crackled. Rulindil exhaled and stared down at the floor, willing himself to stop crying. It had just been- was he so desperate for acknowledgement that just being told he was _noticed_ made him emotional? He laughed under his breath. He must be so very drunk on so little wine. Brandy, he corrected himself.

  
Ondolemar squeezed his hand, cupping his cheek to brush the tears away. The mer was nearly eye level with him, only a little shorter, and his gaze flickered from Rulindil’s eyes to just a little lower. He took a step closer and, when Rulindil didn’t move away, leaned in. Their lips touched.

  
Ondolemar leaned back, watching. Rulindil wasn’t sure what to do - this was something he had even less experience with than social drinking - but- he didn’t want it to stop. He leaned forward halfway before pausing - what if it was only meant to be the one? - but Ondolemar leaned forward as well. The hand cupping his cheek slid forward, becoming firmer. The other hand holding his gave one last squeeze before resting on his chest.

  
He- he was so very drunk. His hands felt clumsy, he didn’t know what to do with them. The hand on his face reached around to cradle the back of his neck and _oh_. He had to do _something_. Rulindil held his hands up and pressed them to the mer’s chest, not to push him away but- but what he wasn’t sure. He’d never considered being this close with a mer. A woman, eventually, somewhere back in Alinor but... Ancestors, it was so warm. His face was hot, his palms on Ondolemar’s were warm inside his gloves. He should take them off before this went much further, if it did go further.

  
Rulindil pulled away, drawing his hands to his core to fumble with the fingers of his gloves. He glanced up apologetically. The first glove refused to come off, the wrist strap wouldn’t come loose and the other glove kept catching on his thumb. Ondolemar’s hands came over his, unbuckling the problem strap and slipping the glove off, smiling as it fell to the floor. When the other one dropped as well Ondolemar held his hands and squeezed them, glancing behind him. Rulindil looked over his shoulder and-

  
The only thing behind them was the bed. Oh. _Oh_. He bit his lip and looked back around, his face heating up as he tried to smile. Perhaps it was the brandy, or Ondolemar’s eyes, but he felt brave enough to handle that without embarrassing himself. He felt confident he could handle that. Ondolemar grinned and placed his hands on Rulindil’s chest, walking him back slowly until his shoulders pressed against the bedpost-

  
Like Kelda- Like Ama-

  
Rulindil’s arms shot out and he shoved Ondolemar away. He stumbled away from the bed, toward the fireplace- just- just away from the bed-

  
Ondolemar fell to the floor in a heap and for a moment Rulindil was terrified he’d injured him. The grunt of pain from the mer broke through his panic and he froze.

  
Oh gods, what had he done? His hands shook and he stared down at them in the firelight. He- they were- they were _fine_ and then he _ruined_ it. He could apologize, say he was startled, but sobbing echoed in his mind, Ama pleading. It wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t make it stop. What was wrong with him?

  
“Rulindil.”

  
He flinched and hurried away to the door. He couldn’t go further. He felt like he was going to be sick and if he was going to be sick, he’d do it in private where he wouldn’t embarrass himself more. The door was locked. Rulindil swore under his breath and shook the handle before remembering where the lock was.

  
“Rulindil.”

  
Ondolemar’s hand rested on his forearm and he jerked away. Rulindil held his hands to his face, trying to steady his breathing.

  
“Forgive me, I overstepped my boundaries. It will not happen again. I am sorry.”

  
Rulindil laughed. “No, _I’m_ sorry. I...”

  
He pulled his hands down, unsure of the words to say, he wasn’t even sure if there were words to say. He- nothing had happened to him: he hadn’t _kissed_ anyone before, let alone lived through what Kelda or Ama suffered. He had no excuse for reacting the way he did. He inhaled, glancing up from the floor. Ondolemar was holding out his gloves. Rulindil scoffed at himself under his breath.

  
Rulindil took his gloves back, unable to look the mer in the eye. “Good night, Emissary.”

  
“Emissary.”

  
He left Ondolemar’s room, wincing at the judgmental click of the lock as he closed the door behind him. The third floor was silent. The stairs were sweltering, though he assumed most of that was the brandy and the shame turning his face red. It only abated when he stepped outside again, into the inner courtyard with the cloudless night and the snow. Rulindil blinked up at the horizon. The Atronach was rising in the west, and the Warrior was setting behind the Druadachs, the Apprentice already gone to rest for the night.

  
Rulindil walked out into the gardens without purpose, absent-mindedly keeping track of where he was among the planters and rows despite himself. It would be too easy to tell himself none of that happened, he’d just dreamed it. Imagined that someone else cared in this gods-forsaken frozen wasteland and then he fucked it up because of course he did. And of course it would have been a mer because that was how Sinderis was, and if his subconscious or his Lady wanted to drive the point home of how easily he could mishandle even the most basic tasks, well- reminding himself of Sinderis was the perfect way to do it. Though this was certainly the first time he’d done so by thinking of himself kissing a mer and enjoying it-

  
Spilt soil littered the walkway in front of him. Rulindil stopped, unable to take his eyes off it, black against the snow-covered stones. “I can’t do anything right, can I?” He said aloud.

  
Rulindil ran his hands over his face and looked up at the sky, the stars. The aurora at least was beautiful tonight, a bright purple and pale blue with dancing lines of sea-green. The purple dominated the northern lights, shimmering like dreams in the grove. His hands fell to his mouth, more to keep his bare fingers warm than anything.

  
Unsteady, he caught himself on the rim of a planter before he hit the ground, but his stomach felt like it had fallen the full distance. His thoughts floated away as he lowered himself to the edge of the garden bed, the reality of the night sinking in. He was drunk. Rulindil sighed, his arms hanging down beside him as his head drooped. Perhaps he just needed to sleep, and hope he would think of something in the morning. She couldn’t stay here, he wouldn’t let her stay here much longer, but he was in no position to help her leave at the moment, and he had no plan. The blood draining to his head grew too much and he looked up, staring over at the soil covering the walkway. Rulindil rubbed his temples, cursing the cold and his growing headache.

  
He stood up carefully, walking around the soil and heading for the shed. When he reached the door he returned to the garden, cursing the pot under his breath before returning with it. He could finish with the redworts at least, before crying himself to sleep.


End file.
